AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

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

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Following Carol's morning session with Enid and Siddiq, she'd changed into something comfortable and she'd dedicated herself to helping tear out dead shrubbery and assorted plants from around the houses in Alexandria. It was a tedious job, and not a very important one when they were in times of war or crisis, and so nobody wanted to do it, but it was suggested every time someone mentioned wanting something to do. The dead plants needed to come up. They were an eyesore and, beyond that, they were a fire hazard. Many of them had gotten wildly overgrown before, for one reason or another, they'd succumbed to death and dried up next to the buildings.

Daryl hadn't known, exactly, how gardening could be dangerous, but he'd gotten an odd wave of panicky worry in his stomach that had boiled around and told him that there was definitely something to be feared in the task. He hadn't expressed his concern very well, though, especially since he couldn't quite state what it was that he was worried about. He'd ended up in something of a brief tiff with Carol as he'd tried to ask her not to do it and, in the process, somewhat ended up sounding like he was going to forbid her from doing it.

Understandably so, Carol didn't take well to being forbidden to do anything.

Michonne had saved him, arguably, from himself.

She'd appeared out of the house, children in tow, at just about the moment that Carol's hands found her hips and the vein in her forehead had let Daryl know that she was gearing up to argue if an argument was what he wanted.

"Any of them that don't come out easily, leave those for us," Michonne had said to Carol, casually and with a smile as she pulled on her own pair of gloves. "There's no use straining yourself for no reason. Your back's going to hurt bad enough from just being on your hands and knees all day with that little one pulling down on your spine."

Michonne's approach had calmed the waters that Daryl's clumsy approach had started to make choppy and rough. Carol had visibly relaxed. Her posture had changed slightly. She'd even smiled and started talking to Michonne about the possibility of clearing the yards that were left in Alexandria—wasted space where grass needed to be tended and snakes were likely to hide—so that they could all be used for planting crops when the weather was right.

Then the two women had gotten to work.

Because every job that was done in Alexandria was valued, and because all the important chores were attended to or in progress at the time, Daryl had retrieved his own gloves and, following after the women, he'd put himself to work yanking out and tearing free every plant that had roots keeping it stuck hard in the dirt. In this way, he could insist that it was not only Carol that didn't need to strain her muscles, but Michonne who should also skip over the hardest plants to tame.

While they worked, Judith and RJ played with Dog and ran around and around the houses where they worked.

Daryl liked this kind of work. It was dirty, sweaty work, and it strained his back and shoulders. It made his hands tired and sore. It was the kind of work that made his body feel strong and good, and made his mind feel clear. There were no high stakes in this job. He didn't have to worry about survival or the survival of those he cared about. He didn't have to focus on the danger around them or their well-being. Beyond his need to urge Carol, once in a while, to stop for a few minutes of rest—which he and Michonne took with her—or a drink or two of water, he didn't feel like he needed to worry about anything.

Everything was perfect in the world, and he was allowed to work at dirty work that made his mind feel clean and his body feel dirty—everything was properly balanced.

Carol had stayed up late the night before. Daryl had invited her to sleep earlier, but he hadn't pushed too hard. She'd sorted cloth pieces by lamplight, not wanting to disturb him and never realizing that he was happy to stay awake just to watch her caught in a simple state of peacefulness.

She'd finally cleared the bed, sorted her stacks on her quilting table, and slid in between the sheets to cuddle close to him. She'd slept against him, snoring quietly and sleeping deeply for much of the night.

Daryl had spent more of the night awake than he really cared to admit.

The baby, now that he knew what she felt like and a few places where he was likely to find her, wasn't too hard to catch if he was still, and quiet, and patient with her. She was a little shy, perhaps. She had moved around for him, some, while Carol had slept in his arms, and he'd felt her against his palm. He'd marveled at the profound feelings that washed over him to feel evidence of her tiny life. Just knowing she was there had nearly robbed him of his breath a few times. He'd marveled, as well, at the fact that Carol slept right through the amazing movements of the tiny baby.

Daryl had wanted the baby before. He wanted Carol to have her. He wanted what bringing her into this world represented. He wanted the marriage that she had helped to facilitate—finally bringing he and Carol together completely. He'd wanted a family of his own—what he'd seen other men have and somehow doubted that he could ever truly have. He'd wanted the chance to be a father—hopefully proving that he could be a good deal better than his own had been.

It wasn't until he'd actually felt her moving, though, that he'd realized how much he actually wanted her.

She was real. She was more concrete than she'd ever been before. She was far more than just an image on a screen or in the frame that Carol kept beside the bed and admired morning and night. She was more than a change in Carol's body shape. She was capable of movement and, judging by her decisions to be still at different times, Daryl could believe she was capable of behaving according to her moods and personality.

And now, in addition to everything he'd wanted before, and everything that had made the life they were building important to him prior to this sort of revelation, he wanted her, specifically.

He had plenty of time to muse it on while they worked. He dared to imagine the baby. He recalled Judith, when she'd been a newborn. He tried to imagine what it would be like when the newborn in his arms was his own daughter—a genetic mix of Carol and himself. He tried to imagine caring for her and watching her grow.

He watched Carol, as she worked, smiling to herself and talking to Michonne about something. He saw her wipe the sweat from her brow, streaking her face with fresh dirt. Despite all the love he felt for her and had felt for her for years, another love—or, perhaps, simply a different layer of the same love—surged up in his breast for her. When she glanced in his direction and smiled at him, he'd dropped his head quickly and felt a little embarrassed at being caught admiring her while she worked and thinking that, if it were possible, he loved her even more today than he had the day before—he loved her more with each passing moment of each passing day.

He laughed to himself.

She would think that it was silly, and it probably was. Still, he knew what he felt even if he didn't say it out loud. He put his energy into ripping bushes free and piling them up in small piles that they would burn later, careful to keep the little fires from spreading to any of the community's structures.

After some time of working, when Daryl had gotten lost in the monotony of his job and his mind had drifted almost as far away from his body as it possibly could, they heard the sounds from the nearby gates of people making noises of welcome. Someone was coming and people were reacting to the arrival with the usual excitement they had for an arrival that wasn't bringing bad news.

"It's Henry!" Carol said suddenly.

There had been no indication that the rig that was arriving—because they were close enough to hear the sounds of at least one rig and team—belonged to Henry, but Carol believed that was who was coming.

Of course, it was time for the boy to arrive—he was even a little overdue, really, if he were being mindful of his mother's feelings—and it stood to reason that it could be him. Daryl didn't argue with Carol. He simply made his way over to her and offered to help her up. She didn't argue with his offer. She gladly let him help her to her feet, and she wasted only a second stretching her body, stiff from her kneeling position, before she practically bounded toward the gates with the almost the same speed and enthusiasm as Judith, RJ, and Dog who were all some steps ahead.

Michonne matched her step with Daryl's, and both of them remained a few feet behind Carol's more rushed steps.

The earlier nagging feeling in Daryl's gut returned and made him want to call out to Carol that she shouldn't rush—she shouldn't risk tripping over something or losing her balance—but he stopped himself.

Carol could take care of herself, and she would remind him of that.

Of course, Daryl didn't doubt, in the least, that she could take care of herself. He hadn't doubted that Michonne could take care of herself when she'd been expecting RJ. In fact, he knew that both of the women could take care of themselves far better than many other people around them could.

Carol was capable of taking care of, not only herself, but everyone around her.

It wasn't about believing that she couldn't take care of herself. It was about the uneasy jelly feeling in his gut and the flashes of negative things that could happen—like war flashbacks of something that hadn't yet happened—that sprang to Daryl's mind. He would have simply preferred that she didn't rush her steps, but he wasn't going to make her feel like he was nagging her or lording over her.

When they got close enough, it was clear to see that there was not just one rig that had made its way into the gates. Instead, there were two rigs. And it wasn't just Henry that had come from the Kingdom.

"Looks like a fuckin' parade," Daryl said.

He'd stopped his steps without really planning to do so, and Michonne had come to a natural stop beside him.

Carol was oblivious to the both of them. She rushed ahead, practically throwing herself at her son and wrapped herself entirely around him. From a distance, it looked to Daryl like Henry had grown almost a foot in the time since they'd last seen him. If he wasn't mistaken, he'd filled out some, as well. If such a public display of affection from Carol was embarrassing for the boy—who Daryl could hardly consider a boy with the changes his apparent growth spurt had made—he didn't let on to his embarrassment. He allowed Carol to cradle his face in her hands, to kiss it, and to hug him again.

And Daryl was thankful that he gave his mother that—and he would let him know that when the time was right.

Daryl felt something in his gut that was entirely different than the jelly feeling of possible danger that he'd felt before as the good king dropped down from the rig and, after quickly shaking hands with a few people who rushed to speak with him, made his way over to Carol and Henry. He wrapped his arms around them both and, then, separating Carol from Henry's arms so that Henry could busy himself with helping to unload the rigs, he turned his full attention to doting on Carol. He rubbed her belly—Daryl had thought it showed rather nicely, such a sweet sight, in the loose shirt she was wearing. The shirt hung just right. And the good king must have said something like that. He'd grabbed Carol in a hug—a hard hug, nearly swallowing her up in his arms. And Daryl had heard his declaration of something about "his queen" as it drifted over the noise and distance between them.

"Wonder what the good king needs in Alexandria," Daryl mused, more to himself than to anyone else. Michonne, though, who hadn't progressed forward and had, instead, remained beside him, heard him.

"I guess we should find out," she offered. She smiled at Daryl, reassuringly, and looped an arm through his. "He's probably here to check on things and make sure Henry gets settled."

"Like that weren't gonna get handled?" Daryl said.

"I don't know why he's here or…what it means. But I will tell you something that you can consider advice from an old friend. Just remember—you're in charge of you," Michonne said. "And you don't want to do anything that makes you look like an asshole."

Daryl thought he heard her warning in the words. Some of the inexplicable feelings that seeing the king drop down from the rig had stirred up inside him pushed back a little, to the edges of his mind.

Daryl sighed.

"Looks like he brought half the damn Kingdom with him, 'Chonne," Daryl said.

Michonne patted his arm and pulled him forward.

"Come on, Daryl. We better greet our new arrivals and show Henry the house you cleaned out for him. And, from the looks of it, we better clear out a few more."