It's awhile before Daryl manages to get himself dressed. When he exits the houseboat and clatters down the ramp to the dock, the moonlight is rippling across the black lake. He walks toward the crowd of people lingering on the dock outside the Grimes' family houseboat. Someone has lit a fire in a metal trash can, and the flames leap up above the rim, crackling against the night. The whole camp is there, except Jackson, who is on watch atop the houseboat, and Carol, Lori, Hershel, and Rick, who are in the Grimes houseboat delivering the baby.
Carl Grimes sits on the edge of the dock, his legs dangling down over the murky water, flanked on either side by Addison and Beth, who reassure him everything's going to be fine whenever one of Lori's intermittent cries drifts to the dock. Lucky kid, Daryl thinks, with two pretty girls to comfort him.
He joins the rest of the mingling crowd. Michonne looks him over. He wonders if she'll ever stop sizing him up every time she sees him. She whispers something to Andrea and then glances toward Andrea's pregnant belly, and then at the Grimes houseboat when another scream emits.
Glenn has an arm around Maggie's waist, and they both look sickeningly nervous. This is the trial run for the other women. Two more births to go after this.
"She's really loud," T-Dog observes. "My wife sure didn't scream that much when she gave birth."
"You had a wife?" Andrea asks in surprise. "A child?"
"Two kids," he answers.
Michonne's face hardens at the mention of kids. "How can anyone stand all this waiting around?" she asks. "I'm going to join Jackson on watch." She strolls off toward the storehouse.
"It sure got quiet suddenly," Glenn says.
"Maybe they've given up on a vaginal birth," Maggie replies. "And they knocked her out to do the C-section."
"With what?" Glenn asks.
"I don't know. My father had something opiate-related."
"Is that safe for the baby?" Glenn asks in alarm.
"It's a risk. But we don't exactly have a hospital and an anesthesiologist and epidurals, do we?"
Daryl can't tolerate all this nervous energy. He thinks Michonne had the right idea, finding something productive to do. He paces off down the dock, away from the rest of the group, but eventually just ends up sitting on a wooden park-style bench. The bench has a memorial plaque attached to the back, in honor of some beloved somebody or another. People used to do things like that – make memorial benches – before so many people had died there wouldn't be enough wood in the world to build them.
He's worried. He's worried for Lori, of course, but also for Carol. If Lori dies, if the baby dies…Carol will blame herself. And she's already caring around enough guilt over Sophia's death. It didn't help that he yelled at her, "All you had to do was watch her!" If he could take back one moment in the world, it would be the moment he yelled those words at her.
Andrea joins him. She sits down slowly, a hand on her belly.
"Good thing you found a camp before popping that thing out," he says.
"We'd have survived," she insists. "But…yeah. I'm glad. It's good to see you all alive again. Sorry about Patricia and Jimmy. How did Beth handle it?"
"Beth's steady now. Ain't try to slit her wrists or nothing."
"Good."
"Take it you haven't either."
She rubs her hand over her belly. "It's not just about me anymore." She's quiet for a moment and then says, "This baby is going to have a half-sibling."
"Oh, you've thought of that, too?"
"I hope they don't look too much alike. Rick might get suspicious."
"Rick knows," Daryl assures her. "Pretends not to. But, yeah…be easier to pretend if they don't both look like Shane."
"Shane and I talked about leaving the group together. He didn't like the way Rick ran things."
Daryl doesn't tell her Shane tried to murder Rick, or that Rick killed him. What's the point? She's carrying the man's child. She'll probably hear someday from someone, but it won't be him.
"I guess it's good we didn't," Andrea continues. "Shane could be volatile. I'm not sure where we'd have ended up. And you've all built something here. Hopefully it will last longer than the quarry. Or the CDC. Or the farm."
Daryl sighs. "Yeah."
Andrea smirks. "I noticed Carol was wearing one of your shirts when she went to help deliver the baby."
Daryl flushes.
"Good date night, huh?"
"Shut it."
Andrea chuckles. "I never would have thought it. I guess I should have seen it coming, though, the way you searched for Sophia for her."
"Wasn't for Carol."
"It wasn't?" Andrea asks skeptically.
"Was for the kid." But maybe it was for Carol, too. God knows he couldn't stand to hear her cry. "And I wasn't the only one searching. Hell, you helped me look." He remembers that night, when he told her about getting lost in the woods as a child, and they found that suicided-man turned walker, and Daryl asked her if she was still thinking of killing herself.
Andrea nods as if remembering, too. "I was even starting to think you and I might become friends."
"Pfft. Lost that chance when you shot me."
Andrea gives him a doubtful look. "I thought you forgave me."
"Mean, you did bring me that novel to read. So I guess that makes up for almost taking my damn head off."
"Was it at least a good book?"
"Case of the Missing Man," he mutters. "Had the twist figured out by page 32." He glances at her. She's still wearing that strange outfit he found her in at the winery, the flowery maternity dress with the mismatched combat boots and the leather jacket that won't close all the way. "You look like you just stepped out of a fashion crimes catalogue."
"You're one to talk."
"Hey, least I always match," he says.
"Because you only ever wear black or gray."
"Wear brown sometimes," he insists. "Which you would notice. If you were observant."
"You're never going to forget that, are you?"
"Three whole syllables," he mutters. "Big word for a guy like me."
"Sorry. I was a condescending bitch back then."
Daryl sits forward a little on the bench and looks at her with surprise. The stars and moon are bright tonight, and he can actually see by their light. That and his eyes have adjusted somewhat to the night. "Never took you for a self-examiner."
"Now that's five syllables."
He chuckles and sits back. "So now you're what? Ready to give everyone the benefit of the doubt?"
"Not by a long shot. But I'm a better judge of people. Woodbury taught me that." She turns her head to him, and then, more softly, "Merle taught me that. I'm sorry about your brother."
He nods solemnly.
"I've got something of his. It's in my pack. I'll give it to you later. Some…lucky coin?"
"Wasn't so lucky, was it?" he asks. "Merle's dead."
"But it's something to remember him by. What's the story behind it? He wouldn't say. It's a Susan B. Anthony silver dollar, of all things. To think, Merle was carrying around a feminist in his pocket."
"Well that's just where he liked women. In his pants."
Andrea snorts. "I missed you. Hard to believe, but I did. All of you. T-Dog's big friendly grin, Carl's cute little freckles, Carol's cooking, Rick's protectiveness, Glenn's goofy eagerness, and Lori's…Well…not so much Lori."
"Lori's gotten more tolerable," Daryl tells her.
"So what's the story behind the lucky coin?"
"Hell if I know. Came back from Iraq with it. Always just said it was his lucky coin." He crosses his arms over himself. He should have thrown on a jacket and not just this long-sleeve, black canvas shirt. It's December after all.
"This baby's early, isn't it?" Andrea asks. "I mean, even admitting that it's Shane's and not Rick's?"
"Three weeks sooner than Carol was expecting it, anyhow."
"So six weeks earlier than makes sense for it to be Rick's child? He's really going to have to pretend now."
Daryl huffs. "Yeah. Let's hope baby Shane doesn't have a big ass nose."
"Shane's nose wasn't that big!"
"Or big ears on its little jug head."
It's easier to joke than to think about what's going on in that houseboat, if crude surgery is now being performed by a veterinarian's apprentice, if either mother or child will come out of this alive, and, if the baby doesn't come out of this alive, if it will turn halfway out the womb, or worse yet—within it. Everything hinges on this birth. If it goes well, Carol won't have another burden to carry on her shoulders, Rick won't be a grieving widower, and Maggie and Andrea can heave a sigh of relief. If it doesn't, a cloud will hang heavy over the camp for a long time to come.
"Shane was a very handsome man," Andrea insists. A sharp, short laugh emits from atop the storehouse, and Andrea turns and glances at Michonne standing there next to Jackson. "Wonder what he said that was so funny?"
As Jackson walks away from Michonne, to the far other end of the roof, Daryl wonders if the kid made a pass at her and she laughed him down, so he walked off in embarrassment. Now he wishes he hadn't told Jackson to go for it. "What's with you and that woman?" he asks.
"What do you mean, what's with us?"
"You two…do a little experimenting at some point?"
"In your dreams, Dixon."
He shrugs. "Just…she seems a bit hung up on you."
"Well, when two people survive in this world for weeks alone together—you get close."
Maggie wanders their way, looking tired. Daryl stands so she can have his seat on the bench, and Maggie plops down on it with a sigh. He fishes in the front pocket of his long-sleeve shirt and pulls out a pack of cigarettes and taps them against his hand.
Any found cigarettes will be stale soon, if they aren't already, so he keeps his in the freezer until he opens a pack. Not that the staleness will keep him from smoking them, but he's running out of unopened packs, and he's been trying to ration himself. His goal was two a day, but maybe that was a bit ambitious for a pack-a-day smoker. This is only his third today, though. He slides one into his mouth, returns the pack to his pocket, and fishes for his lighter. He's running out of butane, too, but for now, he flicks the silver lighter into flame, and his cigarette catches and glows orange at the tip. He inhales with a sigh.
"Daryl," Maggie scolds. "Seriously?"
"What?" he murmurs around the stick in his mouth.
"Lightening up a cigarette a couple feet from two pregnant women!" Maggie shakes her head.
With two fingers, he takes the cigarette from his mouth before blowing out a stream of smoke. "That's what you're worried's gonna kill the baby? Secondhand smoke?"
"A little courtesy."
"Fine. Didn't ask for the company in the first place." Daryl wanders off down the dock toward Glenn and T-Dog, who are standing and talking. Carl and his girls are still sitting on the dock, but they're away from the edge now, sitting cross legged in a semi-circle, and playing scissors, paper, rock. How the hell you do that with three people he isn't sure. He veers off before he gets to them, onto shore, and wanders around the tarp that covers one of the gardens for the winter.
Michonne, no longer on the rooftop, strolls his way from the storehouse and comes to a stop about a yard away from him. "Your son is adorable," she says. "He invited me on a picnic."
She didn't have to be a bitch and laugh in Jackson's face over it, Daryl thinks. "Could of let him down gently."
"Why, when I'd rather go on a picnic?"
Daryl blinks. "You said yes?"
Michonne shrugs. "He said there would be beer involved. And a campfire. And I haven't had a beer in…" She shakes her head. "Not even Woodbury had beer."
"Well don't lead him on, either!" Daryl grumbles.
"A picnic is no guarantee of anything. A man should know that. How old is he anyway?"
"Nineteen."
"Oh." Michonne looks surprised. "That young? He sure knows a lot about philosophy and jazz music for a nineteen-year-old. I was guessing twenty-two."
"How old you think I am?"
She looks him over. "Forty-one."
"I'm thirty-six!"
"Well, how old do you think I am?" she asks.
"I ain't playing this game." He takes another puff of his cigarette.
She looks at the covered garden. "You've done a lot of planning and building here."
"Gonna stay?" he asks.
"If Andrea decides to."
"Pretty sure she's decided."
"Well, then, I might even take T-Dog up on his offer of a bedroom on his houseboat. He seems nice. You all seem nice." She smirks at him. "Well, most of you. But nice is overrated. Most of the nice people are dead."
"Just 'cause folks are nice here, don't assume that means they're weak." He take another puff and turns his head to blow a gray stream of smoke out over the garden before continuing, "We've survived a lot of shit together. And everyone here can hit a target. And stab a walker. Well…Beth and Carl need more training."
"Good to know." She looks over his shoulder, which causes him to turn.
Carol has emerged from the houseboat. She's walking slowly on the dock toward the others, almost as if in a daze. Daryl drops his cigarette to the earth, grounds it out beneath the heel of his boot, and walks quickly toward the dock. Pretty soon he's jogging to her.