AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

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

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They would be coming soon to deliver dinner. Enough time had passed that they had to be getting close to the hour when, "take-out orders" being delivered before anyone sat down to eat, those in charge of delivering them would start going door to door.

Carol lie curled up next to Daryl in the bed and closed her eyes against the sensation of his fingertips making short trips across her skin before they turned and started off in another direction.

She had lived in so many worlds in her lifetime, and each of them was very different from the one before. She could have convinced herself, actually, that she'd gone so far as to live on different planets or that, somehow, she'd time-warped and ended up in eras that were completely different—skipping around from place to place like she was caught in the television that Daryl had mentioned earlier that couldn't help but constantly change its channel.

This world that she now called "home" was no less different than any that she'd lived in before.

But even with all their differences, there were some things that seemed to remain inherently the same across all the worlds. People, for instance, always seemed to somehow remain the same, even if that wasn't saying much for the human race.

So Carol naturally wondered if, among things that didn't really change much, there remained the practice of men, standing around on their breaks at work, discussing their sex lives with each other. It could easily happen here—everyone freely given a mate and procreation made nearly a requirement for life—and Carol wondered if the times had changed enough to take away that trait.

And if it did still happen, did Daryl put on a show about being hyper-masculine in the bedroom? Or was he honest enough to admit that, sometimes, he was the one who pressed Carol into the calm and quiet moments like these where he asked her not to leave the bed even though the sweat was already drying on the damp sheets around them?

Carol wouldn't dare to ask him, though, because she didn't want to embarrass him. She might not be the one who often asked for the quiet and gentle moments, but she enjoyed them immensely. She wouldn't do anything to change them.

Daryl's fingers reached Carol's stomach and tickled the skin there, sending a shiver through her body. She rolled onto her back and looked at him. She couldn't help but smile at him when he greeted her with his own smile and a slight tinge of pink ran across his face.

"Sorry," he said quietly. Carol laughed to herself.

"Don't be," she said.

The offending hand that had tickled her rested on her now, its travels done for the moment, and Carol put her hand over Daryl's. The magic that she felt would be gone from the pregnancy—the wonder of it all robbed by the obligation of it—was still there. It was there for Daryl, at least, and Carol was finding it contagious. She moved his hand, pushing it gently with her own.

"This is more where the baby is," Carol said softly, patting Daryl's hand once she had it in place. "Before? That's more where dinner will be once I've eaten it."

She laughed to herself and Daryl's face blushed a little darker pink.

"To tell the truth?" Daryl offered, not moving his hand. "I don't know much of nothing about it. I've never even been close to a pregnant woman that I knew well enough to—well, to even care. My knowledge of it extends from how you get pregnant...and that didn't even include all of what we did...to the fact that you get fat when the baby gets bigger...to the fact that nine months later it finally gets born. I know—you're supposed to be crazy and eat a lot and yell at me, too." He laughed at his own checklist of all the things that summed up pregnancy for him.

"It's a good place to start," Carol said. "Maybe I can—I can help fill in some of the blanks for you? As we go along? I've been here before."

Daryl's smile dropped slightly and Carol wished she could take the comment back entirely. She didn't want to ignore Sophia's existence, but at the moment she wanted nothing more than the pleasant expression on Daryl's face and the warmth of what was right here, right now. She wanted, just for a few moments, to remain safe and comfortable in that warmth.

"I know," Daryl offered. Carol shook her head gently, trying to erase her own comment.

"Anything you want to ask me?" Carol asked, trying to steer the subject back away from things that made them aware of the negativity of their world.

Daryl sucked in a breath and glanced around like he was seriously considering the question. He shook his head gently.

"Now I know where it is," he said. "I know—it's too early to know anything about it. I guess—if it's too early to know anything about it then it's too early to ask questions. But—when I think of something? I'll let you know."

Carol rubbed Daryl's fingers with her own and he played back with her, catching her fingers between his.

"Did you ever think about it?" Carol asked. "Before? Having kids?"

"I mean—I thought about it," Daryl said. "But not like in serious...I mean not like really being serious. Just thought about it, you know? Like you think this could happen but you don't really think about it."

Carol hummed her understanding.

"Would you want—a boy or a girl?" She asked. "Now that you're thinking about it seriously."

Daryl hummed and shook his head.

"Boy or girl, it don't matter to me," Daryl said. "Besides—I know less about babies than I know about pregnant women. They cry, they eat, they piss and shit. I guess I got a lot to learn all the way around before this one gets born."

Carol laughed to herself and didn't allow the game between their hands to end.

"I think you've got a pretty solid foundation to start with," she said. "We'll work on it from there."

Daryl dipped his head and nuzzled the side of her face and Carol turned to meet him, accepting the kiss that he offered. When he broke away from it, she lifted her head enough to return the nuzzle in her own way and he came back, offering another kiss. He broke the game between their fingers and pressed his palm, warmth spreading over her skin, against the spot she'd directed him to as the baby's most likely location.

"When do we know something?" He asked. "Like if the baby's healthy or if—it's a boy or a girl? How long does all that take?"

Carol sucked in a breath and considered it.

She could tell Daryl that the baby—the thing that he was at least mildly fascinated with—was so small at the moment that it was probably only a clump of their rapidly combining cells. She could tell him that, were he to see it, he wouldn't know what he was even looking at. He certainly wouldn't recognize it as the miniscule version of an already formed baby that he seemed to be seeing in his mind.

But she wasn't going to tell him all that. Because telling him that could break the magic, and she didn't want to take that away from him. His way of seeing things was nicer. His way of seeing things was the way that Carol wanted to see them.

"Well," she said, "it'll be a few weeks before we know much about the baby. We'll probably hear its heartbeat when it's big enough to hear it. But—I think that no news is good news until then. It's just growing. Getting bigger. But—it's going to be a while before we find out if it's a girl or a boy. Alice will let us know, I'm sure. But that'll be a while. We might not even find out until it's born."

Daryl shrugged his shoulders gently.

"Doesn't really matter, does it?" He asked.

Carol shook her head.

"No," she said, offering him a soft smile. "It doesn't really matter." She didn't bother telling him that, in a world gone by, it had mattered very much to the man that she'd been married to—and he hadn't been pleased with the daughter she'd given him.

Instead of shadowing things with negative memories, Carol kept quiet. They fell back into the comfortable silence for a few moments and their thoughts were allowed to roam where they would at will. Working with Alice, Carol knew that reports of pregnancies were popping up around them nearly everywhere. There were some that were over almost as soon as they'd been announced, but there were other people within Woodbury that were doing their civic duty and growing children for the advancement of the population. They had limited interaction with each other, mostly only allowed freedom at meals where they had to focus mostly on eating because they were moved in and out in shifts so that everyone got a plate while the food was relatively warm. Carol wondered how many women, across Woodbury, could say that they were as happy with their so-called mate as she felt with Daryl. How many women, across Woodbury, could say that they'd have wanted their child without even the pressure that was put on them to have one?

"When the baby is born," Carol said quietly, almost hating to break the silence around them, "you're going to hold my hand?"

"What?" Daryl asked.

Carol smiled to herself. She didn't know if he hadn't heard her clearly or if he hadn't understood the question.

"When I have the baby," Carol said. "Will you hold my hand? Or will you—tell Alice that you don't want to be there?"

The noise that Daryl made was unidentifiable beyond simply being a noise. He took her hand, though, holding it like he was responding to the question with some practice of the action.

"I'ma be there," he said. "My kid too, right? So why wouldn't I be there?"

"And you'll hold my hand?" Carol asked. She looked at him and he was staring at her in the way that he sometimes did when he wasn't sure what else to say or do and so looking at her was his only response. "Because it's going to hurt. You know that, right? So—are you going to hold my hand?"

The corners of his lips turned up slightly.

"If that's what you want me to do," he said, squeezing her fingers.

"Good," Carol said. "You make me feel better."

Daryl laughed.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Daryl asked.

Carol wasn't sure exactly what it might mean. It could mean a lot of things, but she wasn't exploring all of the possible meanings just yet. For now, it meant exactly what she'd said—nothing more and certainly nothing less.

"You make me feel better," Carol repeated. "Whether it was holding my hand in the taming pens or—even just today. I had a terrible day today. I just felt bad all day. Heavy. Like everything was just doomed from the moment I woke up. But then you just came home and you were just—you just made me feel better."

"I didn't do anything," Daryl said, some amusement in his voice.

"Maybe that's the point," Carol said. "You didn't have to do anything. Just being here. Just being you. It made me feel better. It's not something you do. It's you that—that just makes me feel better."

Daryl moved his body like he was responding to some outside stimuli—maybe an itch that made a muscle jump or something he heard or smelled that was out of the ordinary. Then he left Carol, pulled away, and went to the edge of the bed. She rolled to watch him as he put his pants on.

"I said something wrong?" Carol asked.

"You didn't hear 'em knock?" Daryl responded.

Carol hadn't heard anything, least of all a knock.

"No," she said.

"I think they knocked," Daryl said. "Dinner. I'll go get it. You just wait here. You stay right here."

Daryl got up from the bed and Carol could tell that he was at least a little agitated. He carried himself a little more tensely than usual. He could say that he was just going to get dinner—dinner that would be there soon if it wasn't waiting now—but something had stirred him up. Maybe it was what she said. Maybe she shouldn't have told him that he made her feel better. Or maybe it was something else that was simply related to all the excitement of the day. After all, even though she'd thought that pregnancy—and everything that came with it—wouldn't be exciting to Daryl, it clearly was.

"Daryl," Carol called, just as Daryl reached the doorframe of their small bedroom. He stopped, catching the frame in his hand, and turned back to her. "I didn't say anything wrong, did I?"

He offered her a half-smile, but it was as genuine as any smile that Daryl ever gave her. He shook his head quickly from side to side and hummed in the negative.

"No," he said. "I'ma get dinner. You just—stay right here and do whatever it is that—you just stay right here."

Carol offered him a smile of her own, nodded at him, and watched as he accepted it and returned to his mission to get their food. She heard, just as he'd disappeared from her sight, the sound of the door opening and the rustling of the bags that they'd bring the food in. Daryl hadn't lied—he'd heard something that she simply hadn't heard. He'd be back, soon, with the food in hand—delivered to her in bed. Then, without a doubt, they'd sit in their bed and eat together in the comfortable silence.

It was, in a world maybe not so entirely unlike any other world that Carol had ever known, the most natural thing in the world.