AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

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

1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

Alice had introduced to them both Margaret and Alissa. Daryl didn't know if the women were doctors or nurses, but he knew that they came from Regional, which was apparently a large hospital in their area. Alice hadn't told them much about the women except that they were supportive of Wave Thirty Three and that their presence there was simply practical—they weren't with the project and they had, basically, no ulterior motives. They were just there because Alice had asked them to come. They gave her some extra hands and a couple of pairs of eyes while she was running the tests. When it was all done, they'd be the ones that would transport the samples to the lab at Regional where the tests, apparently, would be run.

Daryl's job was pretty simple in everything. In fact, it almost felt overly simple. All he had to do was hold Carol's hand. That was it. Honestly, he wished that he could do more somehow. He felt like he was pretty useless in the whole scenario.

Daryl watched Alice as she prepared everything, her focus on what she was doing rather than on who was in the room with her. When she spoke, for a while, it was as though she were speaking the wall or the ceiling. She looked at nobody. It was clear to Daryl, though, that she was speaking the two women that were assisting her and they reacted by doing whatever it was she was commanding them to do. They clearly understood everything a great deal more than Daryl did.

"I think we're just about set up here," Alice said, apparently satisfied with all her preparations. She finally looked at Daryl, then, and also at Carol. "Do you guys have any questions for me?"

She'd already walked them through the procedure, step by step, so Daryl was pretty much out of questions. At least he was out of the ones that he figured were practical. He simply shook his head at her to let her know that he had nothing else to ask that he hadn't already pressed her about before.

"Just—one more time," Carol said. "I know I've asked you a billion times, but just one more time. What are the odds that...you know. That things won't go well?"

Alice laughed quietly to herself.

"The hot topic question," Alice said. "It's very low, Carol. I promise. And it's even lower since I've got Margaret and Alissa here to help me. Alissa's only been studying medicine since the turn, but she's very talented and a very quick study. Margaret's been around since before the turn and we've—we've worked together, I don't even know...a dozen times?"

The woman that had been introduced to them as Margaret was possibly ten years Daryl's senior and she laughed at Alice's calculations.

"Maybe a dozen times in the past year or two," Margaret said. "But in the early days? There weren't that many of us around. We worked together a lot."

"Medical teams have had a lot of work to do to rebuild since the turn," Alice said, directing her commentary to Daryl. He must have made a face that he didn't know about in response to the woman's comment. He wouldn't know anything about medical care since the turn. The only doctors he'd known since everything happened were Alice and those who had worked at the prisons and, honestly, he wouldn't be surprised to find out that those working in the prisons weren't really doctors at all.

"You work with babies?" Daryl asked, directing his question toward Margaret.

"I have," Margaret confirmed.

"Are you an OBGYN?" Carol asked.

"I originally worked mostly in the ER," Margaret said. "I was a cardiologist in actuality, but I kept a low key job at a pretty small hospital because they let me work trauma whenever I wanted. They let me pretty much choose what I did. I always meant to get more focused in my career, but the thrill of the pits called to me more than it should have. But—I've delivered some babies."

"And this isn't even half as complicated as a delivery," Alice said quickly. "All I need here is a couple of fluid samples and you're good to go. So Carol? We're going to do the ultrasound and we're going to locate the babies, OK? I'll let you know before I do anything. No surprises. The biggest thing I want you to focus on is staying calm and still. Don't move on me, OK? That's the important part."

Carol confirmed that she understood her role.

"Daryl?" Alice asked, drawing Daryl's attention to her. "You know what your job is?"

"No," Daryl said. "At least—not beyond holdin' her hand and that don't really feel like no kinda job right now."

"It's an important one," Alice said. "Holding her hand and keeping her calm. It's a very important job and you're the best man for it. I'd bet you can do it better than probably anybody else."

"We wanna keep our young'uns, Doc," Daryl offered. He wasn't sure if it was really appropriate to say to the woman, but he wanted to make sure she knew his feelings on the matter.

Alice nodded her head at him.

"I'm sure you do," she said. "And you're going to. Just like always, we're going to do everything we possibly can to make that happen. Can we get started?"

Carol readjusted herself once, stealing the opportunity before they began and she was asked to hold still, and Daryl held her hand and watched everything that was happening. The whole process horrified him more than he cared to admit. He didn't normally think of himself as the kind of person to get woozy, and especially not over anything simple, but he found out he was a lot more nervous about the babies than he expected. He learned, as well, that anything involving making Carol uncomfortable was more difficult for him to handle than he might've imagined. He felt slightly embarrassed because he was so nervous over what he was watching that he wasn't actually sure that he was much comfort to Carol who kept squeezing his hand at intervals but otherwise stayed still and quiet as was requested.

When Margaret was busy packing the vials of liquid—baby pee as Alice had identified it to him—into something that looked like a briefcase to Daryl, and Alissa had stepped away to wash her hands, Alice announced that they were done.

"We're done?" Carol asked.

"All done," Alice confirmed. "I just want to have one more quick look around while we're here but—yep, the hard part is done. Was it that bad?"

"Are the babies OK?" Carol asked, ignoring Alice's question.

"Fine," Alice said. "You can see them. See? Just have a look. It's OK. They're both asleep. There's one and—there's the other. Not moving around."

"That can be bad, can't it?" Daryl asked, nipping at the thumb that he had free. The other still belonged to Carol at the moment and he wasn't going to ask her to relinquish her hold on it until she was good and ready to do so.

Before Daryl could get his answer, the two women who had come to assist Alice took their leave of her. They offered only the quickest of farewells to Carol and Daryl, wishing them luck, and then they took their briefcase and left the small clinic without much of a show. Alice waited until the door was shut behind them and she was back in the progress of cleaning Carol up before she spoke to Daryl to address his concerns.

"As far as the babies being still and not moving around being a bad thing? I guess it could be," Alice said. "Under different circumstances, it could absolutely be a bad thing. But it isn't. Heartbeats are regular. The babies are fine. I don't think they even noticed I was in there. So they're doing well. The cramping Carol felt was in response to her uterus noticing I was in there. There might still be a little throughout the day, but if it's anything serious? I need to know about it. How are you feeling, Mama? Cramping?"

Carol sucked in a deep breath, the first that she'd taken since Alice had begun everything, and let it out slowly. She shook her head.

"No," she said. "There was, but—I honestly feel fine now. I feel OK." She seemed to think about it a moment and the she answered with a little more confidence. "I'm fine. Actually—I'm better than I thought I'd be."

"You're better than Andrea was," Alice offered.

Carol laughed quietly.

"I'm a lot better than Andrea was," Carol said.

"What happened to Andrea?" Daryl asked.

"Nothing happened to her," Alice said. "She was just nervous. Very nervous."

"She cried the whole time," Carol said. "Actually...she was crying when she got here, I think. And when they were escorting her back, she was still crying."

"You're fine, Carol," Alice said, seeming to finish entirely with anything she intended to do with Carol. "You're fine and the babies are fine. But you can always call me if you think there's anything wrong. You know that. You can sit up when you're ready. The dye on your abdomen will take a couple of days to wash off, probably, so don't be surprised if you're pink for a little bit. We like to make sure that we're getting the disinfectant exactly where we want it. The color helps us keep up with that."

"I can handle being pink a lot better than I can handle an infection," Carol said in response.

Alice stepped away from them a moment and continued straightening up and putting the clinic back in order. Carol didn't immediately sit up and Daryl didn't rush her. She could take her time for all he cared. He'd stand there all day and wait on her if that's how long it took for her to get herself together and get ready to go home. Whatever she needed was fine with him.

"Andrea's doing OK," Alice said, picking up the thread from the earlier conversation. Her comment was clearly as much to herself as it was to Carol or Daryl. "Really she is. It's the nature of the project. Solitary confinement gives you time to think. Too much time, honestly. She's allowed some company—a whole lot more than Wild A—but she's still alone a lot. Emotions run away with you after a while." Almost as though she just remembered that they were there, Alice stopped organizing her things and turned to look at Carol and Daryl. She smiled at them. "You two are really lucky, actually. You have each other and you have each other as much and as often as you want. And—you like each other. Don't think that isn't important. Not everybody here can say that."

"I think we more than like each other," Carol offered. She sat up then and Daryl helped her, even though she didn't request his help and probably didn't need it. She hadn't been required to strip down for the whole thing and she rearranged her clothes so that they were properly situated on her body. She sat on the edge of the table for a few moments and Daryl stood beside her, assuming that she wanted to take a moment before she committed to actually getting to her feet. "Would you say that's fair, Daryl?" Carol asked.

"Huh?" Daryl asked. He felt his face run warm. He'd been focusing on the movements of her body. He'd been focusing on what she was doing. He'd forgotten, honestly, to listen to what she was saying. "Didn't hear ya. Sorry."

Carol smiled at him.

"I said—I think we more than like each other," Carol said. "Would you say that's fair? To say that?"

Daryl swallowed. He wasn't used to making declarations of his feelings with an audience. Still, there was no way that he could refuse to say something in response. He glanced at Alice and then back at Carol.

"Reckon you know the answer to that," Daryl said. "You oughta."

Carol laughed to herself.

"We'd make it more official or whatever," Carol said, glancing at Alice to let her know that she was talking to her before she looked back in Daryl's direction. "But they haven't exactly given us that opportunity."

"So I've heard," Alice said. "Still, there's hope. The petition can always be put in."

"For?" Carol asked.

"Marriage," Alice said. "All the rights and privileges that it brings these days."

"In prison communities," Carol added.

Alice hummed and nodded her head.

"It probably wouldn't be much, but if you're serious about it? It could be a title at least. Who knows? Expressing that we have citizens interested in it might be a step in the right direction. It certainly couldn't hurt. Carol—I want you to take it easy today," Alice said. "Take it easy a couple of days, actually. Just go home, put your feet up, and demand that Daryl wait on you a little bit. Eat. Rest. Read a book or something."

Carol put her hand on her belly, but she didn't leave it there for long.

"Do you think there's anything to worry about?" Carol asked. "Honestly? I don't want you to tell me what you think I want to hear. I want you to tell me the truth."

"I think that there's always something to worry about," Alice said. "There are always possibilities that things don't go the way we want them to. However—I don't really think that there's too much of a threat here. The procedure went very well. I'm actually super happy with it. I won't lie to you. I was nervous about doing it. But—I really think it went well. I don't even know how it could've gone any better. I'd just like you to take it easy because I'd rather err on the side of caution. It isn't going to hurt anyone if I write the two of you medical passes for a couple of days and you spend those days taking care of yourself and your babies. Being safe is a helluva lot better than being sorry."

"I gotta say," Daryl tossed in quickly, "I agree with her on that."

"So what do we do?" Carol asked. "Any special orders?"

"Rest," Alice said. "Relax. Enjoy yourself. Nothing strenuous. Nothing that's really going to tire you out. Just take it easy."

Carol nodded her head and thanked Alice. She finally eased herself off the table and stood on her feet. Daryl offered Alice his hand and she took it and shook it. He thanked her, sincerely, for taking care of them. He wasn't happy about the procedure being required, but he knew enough to know that it wasn't her doing. She was just doing what she was ordered to do. And Daryl, for his part, was sincerely thankful that she at least cared enough to do that with the upmost care possible.

Alice filled out the medical leave passes and handed both of them directly to Carol. Carol glanced at them, reading them, and then she tugged Daryl's hand to drag him in the direction of the door. Alice called to them, catching their attention just before they stepped outside.

"Something wrong?" Carol asked, turning back with her hand already on the door.

"I meant to say in my orders—no sex for a couple of days," Alice said. A smile spread across her face. "You'll just have to come up with some other way to occupy your time."

Carol laughed quietly, clearly relieved. She'd apparently already gotten concerned that it was going to be something serious. Daryl laughed too, finding that his own chest flooded with relief as well.

"Ain't gonna be easy," Daryl offered, "but I guess we can give it our best shot."