AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

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

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"Literally everyone here is available to you," Alice said. "So—don't feel like you'll hurt my feelings or anything if you want to talk to everyone. You can see everyone, if that's what you want. We're not, like, in competition with each other or anything. And we're all pretty much available twenty-four-seven."

"Don't you gotta sleep?" Daryl asked quickly.

"Well…yes and no," Alice said. "I mean we sleep whenever we want, but we live a pretty blessed life here, especially with Merle running things."

Daryl laughed and the woman looked at him quizzically. He shook his head.

"You hadn't known my brother like I've known my brother," Daryl said. "The idea that he's responsible for building some kinda Eden is a little hard to accept with a straight face."

"He didn't build it," Alice said. "I've been here since the start of the outbreak and this place has, too. He just changed things. As a surgeon? I'm protected in ways you wouldn't believe. Pardon my French, but I live a super fucking blessed life here now. Really. I don't have to go out there…ever…unless I want to. I'm taken care of. My needs are met. The only thing that I have to do is be ready and available whenever the proverbial call comes."

"Doctors are hard to come by," Daryl ceded.

Alice nodded.

"I guess they are out there," she said. "We've got four. We don't need the whole force very often, but it's not too bad knowing they're here." She turned her attention to Carol. "And for that reason, I said you can see whoever you want. You've got choices."

"I know," Carol said. "But—I prefer you. I know you. We had dinner together and…I like you. You're easy to talk to."

Alice laughed to herself.

"I promise my colleagues are some pretty cool guys as well," Alice offered.

"But they're men," Carol said. "And if it's all the same to you…"

Alice nodded.

"It's totally great with me if that's what you want," Alice said. "I'm here to serve you. So—if you're sure, why don't you come with me and I'll show you around a little?"

They followed her through the cabin that had been turned into a clinic. The neighboring one, she told them, had been turned into a hospital. It allowed for patients who needed to stay longer to recover from injuries under observation, and it was set up to allow for surgeries. Daryl hoped that neither of them had any reason to see the other medical building—at least not for a while and not for any serious reason.

This one, it seemed, was set up more like the traditional doctor's offices from before.

Daryl listened to very little of her words, though, until she led them to a room and opened the door.

"And this is my office," she said. "We're actually remodeling still—and I don't know how long that will go on. In the future, I hope that I've got a better set-up, but this is what I have for now."

Daryl followed Carol inside. It was clearly a bedroom converted into something of an exam room.

"Looks OK to me," Daryl said.

"I'd prefer that the floors were something other than wood," Alice said. "But at least they're not carpet. And—we finally got real exam tables, so that's a step up from the days when we were using kitchen tables. Carol—we're going to need an ultrasound machine, so I'm going to have to move one in here. While I'm doing that, do you want to get undressed? There are some clean cloth gowns in that stack over there and those blankets are clean if you're feeling a little exposed."

Carol nodded and Alice started out of the room. Daryl called after her.

"Need a hand with that?" He asked.

"No," she said sincerely. "It's mounted on wheels. And I hit the jackpot of a downstairs room so everything is pretty convenient for me. I'll be right back. You two just—get comfortable."

Daryl nervously turned his back to Carol and walked across the room to focus on the bookshelf. It was stocked with medical books. Beside it, there was a file cabinet. There were also several tables in the room and two dressers. There were a couple of chairs, as well.

"I'm sorry—I was gonna give you privacy," Daryl offered. He knew that, behind him, Carol was changing into the gown.

"It's fine," Carol said. "I'm so nervous—I'd rather not be alone."

"She seems friendly," Daryl said.

"She's very friendly," Carol said.

"Seems honest," Daryl said. "That's a real good thing."

Before they could talk much more about the merits of the doctor, there was a knock at the door and she opened it.

"Can I come in?" She asked. Carol told her she could, and the woman came in wheeling the machine that she'd spoken about. She set about setting it up.

"Any of you baby doctors?" Daryl asked.

"Whether you mean obstetricians or pediatricians, the answer remains the same. Not by specialty," Alice said. "But, of course, we've all had some general training."

"You said none have made it here," Daryl said. "Why is that?"

"We have a baby here, but she was born before all of this. What I said was that we haven't had any live births. As for why, it's hard to say exactly," Alice said. "I mean—we're not set up to do a lot of analysis. We've been set back more than a few decades in the way we do things. Still—I don't know that the specifics matter that much. Most of the time it seems to be poor maternal health. Most of the time, we get an expectant mother in here and she's barely making it. Starvation, injury—maybe even trauma plays into it. Something has to give and her body knows that. Sometimes we lose the baby, and sometimes we lose both."

Daryl looked over at Carol, perched on the table, when he heard her breathing catch. He rushed over to her and caught her face in his hands.

"Hey—hey—you OK?" He asked.

She shook her head at him.

"Look at me," he said. "Breathe…just breathe…look at me."

Alice rushed over as well.

"Hey! Mama…Daddy's right, OK? Look at him or look at me, OK. I didn't mean to upset you. The women that we've seen come in here? They've been in some bad shape, Mama, OK? Some bad shape. Not like you. Can you tell me—hey, can you tell me what was your favorite hobby before you got here?"

Carol looked at her. Confusion crossed her features, but it took the place of some of the panicked expression.

"What?" She asked.

"Your favorite hobby," Alice said. "You know. What'd you like to do? For fun? Before all of this."

"I liked—to bake," Carol said.

"Yeah?" Alice said. "Like cakes or…?"

"Cakes," Carol said. "And pies. Cookies. My daughter liked cupcakes…so I baked a lot of those."

"What's your specialty?" Alice asked. "The real don't miss this shit in your kitchen?"

Carol's breathing was slowing down. She even laughed to herself.

"Sophia liked chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing," Carol said.

"I'm a double chocolate girl myself," Alice said. She nudged Daryl out of the way and he stepped aside to give her complete access to Carol. Without saying anything, she started a quick exploration of Carol's body—just the typical checking her glands and looking her over without the need of any kind of real invasion of her space. "Tell me about—Sophia?"

"My daughter," Carol said.

She froze, immediately, like she'd just realized what was happening. She froze like she'd just realized what she was saying and what she'd been talking about. Almost immediately after they'd put Sophia in the ground, Carol had given up crying. She'd declared that she was cried out and her mourning was done. She had no more tears to shed. Daryl knew, of course, that it was a lie and she was postponing dealing with what would eventually have to be dealt with, but he could no more force her to deal with her feelings than he could force the rain to stop when it started. Beyond that, the world they were living in didn't exactly allow for a great deal of time to grieve.

She was keeping her grief locked up tight inside her—like a secret that only they knew about—but suddenly some of it bubbled out and Daryl saw her cry for the first time since Sophia had been buried on Hershel's farm.

And it was a body-shaking cry that seemed to even scare Carol herself.

Alice responded simply by wrapping her arms around Carol and pulling her into a hug. She stood there, rubbing her back, and shushing her more like she was her mother than her doctor. Daryl didn't know, exactly, what else she might have done.

"Sophia was her daughter," Daryl offered softly. "We lost her. Not—it ain't been—prob'ly maybe six months? If even that."

Alice nodded at him. She made eye contact with him. But she simply rocked Carol from side to side and Carol cried solidly for a few moments. And then, almost as quickly as the crying started, it abruptly stopped and was replaced by a string of apologies.

"Grief has a way of surprising us," Alice said. "Over and over again. Don't apologize for it. The whole world is grieving now. Every single person you meet is grieving."

Carol accepted the handkerchief that Daryl gave her and she let him hug her when Alice went to wash her hands in the adjoining bathroom. Then the brunette returned.

"I'm not going to listen to your heart and all right now, OK?" Alice said. "I know it's a little broken and—maybe it's not beating the same way it will be in a while. But—tragedies like this? That's why we need good things, right? I'm sorry about your little one…"

"She was eleven," Carol breathed out.

"And still your baby," Alice offered.

Carol sobbed again and Daryl grabbed her to him quickly, but it was only a short burst of sound that escaped before she got it under control. He was sure, in that moment, that there would be many more tears. She was ready to start grieving—and she needed to do so.

Just, perhaps, not here.

"I'm sorry that you lost her," Alice said. "But—why don't we see how this little one's doing, OK?"

"OK," Carol agreed. She nodded. She followed Alice's softly offered instructions of making herself comfortable on the table. She allowed Alice to drape her in the sheet, and she accepted everything that Alice asked to do to her as the woman walked around her and pressed and probed her body. Daryl kept some distance, but he did notice that the woman seemed to carefully and thoroughly inspect every single inch of Carol—inside and out for as much as her body allowed.

"Everything looks good," Alice said, when she returned from washing her hands again. She dropped the towel she used on the table beside the machine. "Your body is in it to win it, right now. You're showing no signs of trouble with your cervix."

"What does that mean?" Daryl asked.

"It means that there are no signs of preterm labor," Alice said. "We're not trying to have this baby right away—and that's a good thing. Now—I'm going to see if we can see the little one. I've done some training on these machines, but I'm going to tell you up front that it wasn't my specialty and it takes me a couple of minutes of searching around to find what I'm looking for."

Carol laughed. She was relaxing. The good news she'd gotten so far, coupled with having cried herself out a good bit, seemed to really make her tired.

"Take your time," Carol said.

"I can totally print you a picture of your little one if we get a good shot, though," Alice said. "So that's a prize for your patience. Right, Mama? Would you be a Mama or a…Mom?"

"Mama," Carol offered. "Or Mommy."

"And you?" Alice asked. She looked at Daryl and Daryl's heart thundered out a warning. He looked at Carol and she was smiling at him. When he didn't answer and didn't look away, she raised her eyebrows at him.

"Daddy?" Carol asked.

"Yeah," Daryl accepted. "Yeah—Daddy."

"It's none of my business," Alice said. "And you don't have to answer, but…first baby together?"

"Yeah," Carol said.

"Congratulations," Alice said.

"Actually," Carol said, as Alice spread something on her belly and started working with the machine she'd already declared herself to be less than an expert at using, "you should probably know that—I was married before. And—he was…well…he was…"

"What?" Alice pressed after a second.

"He was an asshole," Daryl supplied. "A complete and utter fuckin' asshole. And there ain't nobody sad he's dead."

"I've known a few of those in my life," Alice said.

"He was abusive," Carol said. "For—fourteen years..."

"And you're worried that he might have done some lasting damage," Alice said. Carol hummed at her. "Everything looks OK right now, but we'll keep an eye out. Just in case. OK—Mama, Daddy, look here. There you go. You see? Right there's a face and there's the spine and…that? That's the heart. See it beating? And—listen. That's the sound of it."

"Is it panicking?" Daryl asked. "That's ridiculously fast."

Alice laughed.

"It's normal," Alice said. "Trust me. No panic at all."

It was a baby on the screen. Daryl could make out some of it from time to time. Alice searched around, looking at different things—the screen flicking from one angle to another—and Daryl kept losing any clear sense of what he was seeing. But he could see it moving. He could see hands moving and feet moving. He could see the flickering spot of the heart. He could even see, and it made Carol laugh when she saw it, the moment that the baby on the screen opened its mouth and Alice declared that it had yawned.

They had possibly disturbed its nap.

"Is it OK?" Carol asked.

"From what I can see," Alice said, "you should have about twelve weeks left to go, Mama. It looks like you're in the home stretch. We desperately need to get some weight on you, though, like yesterday, because baby's going to need some, OK? She's reading a lot smaller than she should be, but she's looking good. She's looking healthy and we've got a lot of movement. She just needs a little meat on her bones now."

"She?" Daryl asked, almost at exactly the same moment that Carol asked it.

"She," Alice said.

"You can see that?" Daryl asked.

Alice laughed.

"It's what I can't see that tells me it's a girl," Alice said. "Here—I'm going to move it again. See that? That's a leg. And that? That's another leg. And you see what's between them?"

"I don't see anything," Daryl admitted.

"That's exactly the point," Alice said. "OK—I'm going to set one of these pretty profiles I got to print and…I'm going to get a read on your blood pressure and heartbeat, OK?"

"They aren't good," Carol said.

Alice laughed to herself. She used the towel she'd had before to wipe Carol's belly clean and then she tossed it into a large basket of towels.

"As long as your heart's ticking," Alice said, "that's mostly what I want to hear. And when Daddy takes you out of here to get a snack and celebrate, your blood pressure will even out a little." Carol sat up and allowed Alice to listen to her heart. She accepted, too, the blood pressure cuff when Alice came with it. "You know they bake dessert for every meal? They'll make special requests, too. Maybe—you could ask for a couple of cupcakes. Tell them it's doctor's orders to celebrate. Something—in honor of Sophia, maybe."

Carol frowned, but there was a glimmer of a smile in her eyes like her face didn't know what it wanted to do.

"You're sure it's a girl?" Carol asked.

"As sure as I can be," Alice said. "I make mistakes like every other human, though. You're fine, Mama. You'll calm down when you get some fresh air and get outta here. You can get dressed."

"You're sure—she's healthy?" Carol asked. Daryl focused intently on the bookshelf, again, while Carol got dressed.

"I'm sure she's very much alive," Alice said. "And I'm sure that your body has a vested interest in keeping her that way. So do I. I'm afraid that's all the guarantee that I can give you. We're going to do our best."

"Is that what you told—the other women?" Carol asked. "The ones that…lost their babies?"

"I did tell them that we were going to do our best," Alice admitted. "And I swear we did. I know what you're thinking. But the situation was a lot bleaker then. I've got some real hope for Andrea's baby and, now, for yours. Our luck is turning around—and it's about time we started really building a future."

Carol smiled to herself and nodded.

"What can I do to help her?" Daryl asked. He felt Carol looking at him, but he focused on Alice's face because he wasn't sure he could look at Carol at that exact moment. He didn't know if she was dressed, and he also wasn't sure he could face whatever expression she might be wearing.

"Lots of yummy food," Alice said. "All she wants. This isn't a time to worry about counting calories unless we're counting up. Light exercise is good for her, but she's on gentle work detail. Some relaxing massages might not hurt. Be careful with warm baths. Don't get the water too hot. Just kind of hot. Anything that you'd normally do to be happy and relaxed. That's all that Mama needs right now. And take her to get some treats. I was serious. You need to celebrate. Really celebrate. Make it a big deal."

"Thank you," Carol said sincerely.

"Thanks," Daryl said.

"Don't thank me," Alice said. "It's just my job. It's what I do. How I sing for my supper, right?"

"It might be a little more than that," Carol offered.

She thanked Alice again when the woman brought her the printed picture. She pinched it delicately between her fingers.

"We have tons of picture covers and frames in storage," Alice said. "Someone can hook you up. That's a good-looking kid you've got there. And I'm happy that I get to tell you that she's doing OK."

She led both of them to the door to let them out of the room. From there they could easily find their way out of the clinic.

"I'm happy you could tell us that, too," Carol admitted.

"Go enjoy her," Alice said. "I'm serious. And enjoy each other. You're both very lucky."

"Thanks," Carol offered. "We—we really are."

Daryl echoed the sentiment. And, really, he felt it, too. He felt lucky. None of it, after all—none of the happiness surrounding the moment and the new life that was absolutely on the horizon—might really be his, but he was lucky enough to enjoy it for a moment.

And he intended to enjoy it for however long it lasted.