Author's Note: Amazon's Kindle Vella is FREE to eligible readers through October 11. You get to read 100 free episodes a day. Vella is a way to read serialized fiction. So if you like my fanfic, please try out my serialized novella on Kindle Vella while it's free. It's called "Grasping Hot Coals" and published under the name of Molly Taggart. If you do enjoy it, be sure to like each episode. I appreciate it! (kindle-vella/story/B099Y6V699)

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The camp plays musical houseboats when the newcomers arrive. The goal is to keep the camp close together and to make sure everyone is living on a boat with power and running water. Andrea and T-Dog, now making their relationship "camp official," agree to share a bedroom, with baby Dale in a bassinette alongside their bed. Jackson moves out of Glenn and Maggie's houseboat to the couch T-Dog was sleeping on, while Beth moves out of her houseboat to the bunk Jackson vacated in the room he once shared with Addison. "It's time to stretch my wings, Daddy," Beth tells her father.

Meanwhile, Hershel takes the third bedroom in the Grimes' family houseboat (baby Judith is still co-sleeping with Rick and Lori, but they plan to put her in a crib in Carl's room eventually). That leaves Hershel's old houseboat vacant for the newcomers.

"We did it again, Pookie," Carol tells Daryl as he shovels grits into his mouth the following morning before leaving for the hunt. She's wiping down the kitchen counters. "We kept this place all to ourselves. How did we manage that?"

"Ain't no one wants to live with me 'cept you."

She chuckles.

"And we got the smallest boat," he adds.

"Still…maybe we should invite Jackson to live here, so he doesn't have to sleep on the couch in a boat with three other people and a baby."

Daryl sets his spoon in the bowl. "Where's he gonna sleep here but the couch?"

"You and I could share a bedroom. And he could have the second one. We already do share some nights. Until you slink back to yours, anyway."

"Think Jackson wants to sleep on the couch there. 'Cause 'Chonne's living there."

"Oh? Is he still holding out hope there?"

Daryl shrugs. "Just likes talking to 'er, I think. 'Cause she's educated and shit."

Carol folds her wash towel and drapes it over a cabinet rack. "It's crowded. And T-Dog and Andrea aren't going to want baby Dale in their room forever. They'll want to put him in a crib in the living room eventually. I really think we should invite Jackson to stay here." She walks over and sits down across from him at the table. "Is it that you don't want this to get too serious?"

He swallows down his last bite of grits. "What?"

"Is the real reason you don't want to agree to share a bedroom with me that you don't want our relationship to get too serious?"

"Thought it already was serious!" he exclaims.

His sudden alarm eases the tension Carol didn't even know had crept into her muscles. She lets out an amused laugh. "Yeah. I mean, so did I. But…you obviously didn't tell Miranda we were together. She seemed shocked when I told her. And why the reluctance to share a room?"

"Don't mind sharing a room. Just don't want to share our boat. Like living with you. Just you. Like being able to fuck on the kitchen table."

"We've never fucked on the kitchen table."

"But we could."

"Theoretically," Carol agrees.

"Can't if Jackson's here! Can't fuck on the couch neither."

"We have done that," she admits. "Daryl, there are now four adults and a baby on that boat. It's too much. We have the space. And if the bed gets too tight for you…" She knows he doesn't like the feeling of confinement, that he's long been a man accustomed to the open forest and the open road…and that bed is small. "You can always ease out and sleep on the couch after I fall asleep. But I do like falling asleep with you."

"Fine. But you know he's a chatterbox, right?"

She smiles. "I could use some evening conversation."

Daryl glowers. "I converse." He picks up his empty bowl and brings it to the sink. "He's gonna make you read philosophy books and discuss 'em."

"I could probably benefit from learning some philosophy."

"And he bites his nails," Daryl mutters.

"Hmm…sounds familiar."

"Don't bite my nails!"

"You chew on that hangnail on your thumb whenever you're nervous or don't know what to say."

"Pfft."

"I don't know how you can still have a hangnail at this point." She stands, walks over to the sink, and hugs him. He hugs her back.

Jackson does move into their houseboat, and Daryl adjusts well enough to the intrusion. In fact, there are times he seems to like having another man around. "You're outnumbered now," he teases Carol at one point over dinner, when there's a disagreement about where boots should be taken off after the hunt.

Carol falls asleep in his arms every night (unless one of them is on watch). She often awakes to find he's moved to the couch. She doesn't blame him, and, in fact, she likes the bed to herself, narrow as it is. Sometimes he crawls back into bed before she wakes up, mostly when he has morning wood, and sometimes she's obliging. Other times, she sends him away grumbling, reminding him she doesn't have to be up as early as he does.

One night, Daryl passes out in bed before she does, and she's the one who slinks to the couch. Jackson is not at home. He's out late hanging out with Beth, Zach, and Addison. When he comes home and slumps onto the couch a cushion away from her, she's mending a pair of pants.

"Have fun?" she asks.

"I think Zach and Beth are going to hook up eventually."

"Does that bother you?" Carol pulls a thread through the pants. She wonders if the competition has made him suddenly more aware of Beth's virtues.

"No. I'm glad. Because that means he won't go after my sister. Besides… Beth will finally have the boyfriend she's been wanting. And Zach seems all right."

"But not all right enough for your sister?" Carol asks.

"He's almost nineteen. And, besides, Addison's…never mind."

Carol glances at him curiously. She's just tying off a knot in her thread when Glenn's voice drifts down the ladder. "The baby's coming!"