Carol's shirt-his shirt-is spotted with blood. Human blood. She's looking unsteady on her feet, and it doesn't help that everyone has surrounded her and is asking questions all at once. "Back off!" Daryl roars.
Everyone steps back suddenly, and he steps closer to Carol in the space that has opened. His eyes flit over her. Her hands are clean. Maybe she scrubbed them. Or maybe she was wearing gloves during the C-section. "You a'ight?"
"Me?" she says. "Me…yeah." She looks at Carl. "Your mom's alive."
The boy lets out a sigh of relief. "And my little…"
"Sister," Carol tells him. "You're little sister. She's alive, but she's very small and very weak. They're going to have to watch her closely."
"Did the baby latch on?" Maggie asks.
"Lori hasn't tried to feed her yet. She's still pretty out of it. But hopefully it will happen soon."
"What's her name?" Carl asks. "My sister?"
"Well," Carol tells him, "your dad said they're going to let you pick that."
Carl tips up his father's old sheriff's deputy hat, which he wears like a trophy these days, and scrunches his face as if he's thinking. "There's a lot of possibilities. Like…Amy."
Andrea breathes in, and Michonne, who has joined them by now, puts a comforting hand on the small of her back. Andrea must have told the woman about her sister.
"Jacqui," Carl continues.
T-Dog looks down at the dock.
"Patricia."
Beth leans a head on Maggie's shoulder.
"Sophia."
Carol lets out a sob-like gasp, and Daryl steps closer to her. She grabs his shirt, balls it in her fists, and leans her forehead against his shoulder. He wraps his arms around her, in front of everyone, and he can feel their eyes on him. He can feel her warm breath on his shirt, but she doesn't allow the tears to fall. Instead, she steps away and swipes quickly at her eyes before turning to Carl. "You should pick a name that's special to you."
"Sophia was special to me," he tells her. "But I think…I think I'm going to go with Judith."
"Who's Judith?" Glenn asks.
"She was my third-grade teacher."
"How did you even know her first name?" T-Dog asks. "I only knew all my teachers as Mrs. or miss or mister. Or coach."
"She had us call her by her first name. And she was my favorite teacher. Ever."
"Sounds like someone had a little schoolboy crush," Beth teases.
Carl flushes. "It wasn't like that. She just…she really inspired me."
"I bet," Beth says and chuckles.
Carl glowers, and Addison comes to his rescue by saying, "Judith's a really good name. It's in the Bible."
T-Dog looks puzzled. "I don't remember any Judith in the Bible. And I think I would. I spent a lot of time in church."
"It's in the Eastern Orthodox Bible," Addison tells him. "It's not in the Protestant Bible."
"It's in the Catholic Bible, too," Carol says.
"Your folks were Orthodox?" T-Dog asks.
"Our mother was from Romanian," Jackson replies. He's come down from rooftop watch and has just now joined them. "Is Lori okay? The baby?"
"They're both alive," Carol tells him.
He lets out a sigh of relief.
"And I'm naming my sister Judith!" Carl exclaims. Then, as if he'd known all along, "It's in the Bible."
Addison smiles.
Jackson nods. "Good name, because in the Bible, Judith grows up to rescue her people. They've been conquered by the Assyrians, and Judith goes to the camp of the enemy general, and she seduces him and then cuts off his head while he's drunk."
"Cool!" Carl says.
"And then she walks around holding the severed head by its hair."
"Jack!" Addison scolds.
"What?" he asks.
"A little graphic, isn't it? And that part isn't in the Bible."
"It's in the paintings," Michonne observes. "I saw Allori's Judith with the Head of Holophernes at the Queen's Gallery in London once."
Jackson smiles at her. "You must have been well travelled."
"I wouldn't say that, exactly, but I made it to the U.K. once."
"Can I see her now?" Carl asks. "My little sister?"
"Go on," Carol tells him. "But I think everyone else should stay back. Give the family some space. You can all meet little Judith tomorrow." The expression on her face, though, tells Daryl what's she's thinking—if Judith makes it through the night alive.
Carl runs off and up the ramp to his houseboat, passing Hershel on the way down. Hershel, medical bag in hand, joins the others on the dock. "How are you holding up?" he asks Carol.
She nods. "I'm good. I just wish I'd done a better job with the stitches. She's going to have some pretty ugly scars."
"Lori's alive," Hershel assures her. "That's what matters. And I could not have done this without you." He sighs. He looks directly at his eldest daughter. "This is a dangerous world to be getting pregnant in." Then he looks at Glenn, his eyes a bit more narrowed.
"We were using protection," Glenn insists. "It just…the – "
"- No need for details," Maggie interrupts him.
"I'm so tired," Carol says, and leans her head on Daryl's shoulder. "I was supposed to have watch after Jackson."
"I'll cover for you." Daryl drapes an arm across her shoulders. He doesn't care if people see his affection. He'll take the ribbing if he has to. "After I get you home."
The group parts for them so they can walk down the dock. Back on the houseboat, Carol changes her shirt and then slides down onto the couch, where she peels off her boots and socks.
"You look beat," Daryl tells her.
"I'm just emotionally exhausted," she admits, laying her head back on the arm of the couch and stretching her legs out. "It was touch and go for awhile there. And the baby was breathing when she came out. I was so sure she was dead. We had to clear the airways. And when she cried…I never felt so much relief." She closes her eyes and slips into sleep.
Daryl drapes a blanket over her and tucks a pillow under hear head, so she's not just lying against the hard arm of the couch. Then he heads out to take her shift on watch. She's still asleep on the couch when he gets back to hours later, rolled on her side now. In the morning, she's on her other side, and still snoozing away. He slips out as the sun rises, glad she's getting her rest, and soon he's slipping into the forest with Jackson.
Just inside the tree line, Daryl pauses and swings his backpack off his shoulder to the forest floor. He unzips it and takes out the box of condoms Jackson gave him and hands them to his son. "Here. I ain't gonna need these."
Jackson doesn't take the box. "It was only a first date. I thought you should be ready, just in case. I didn't actually think you'd need them. You can't expect sex on the first date."
"Won't need 'em. Carol got her tubes tied. In the old world."
"Oh." The young man takes the box, swings his backpack off his shoulder, and shoves the condoms inside his back pocket.
"Heard you're taking 'Chonne on a picnic."
"Uh…yeah. In a couple days. When I don't have evening watch."
They walk on a few yards, the dead, dry, frosty leaves crunching beneath their boots, Daryl sweeping the ground for any sign of deer tracks.
"Probably wasn't the smartest suggestion," Jackson says. "In December. But a picnic was just the first thing that popped into my head. We'll light a fire. It should be okay. I mean, we still do communal dinners outside, right? Some nights."
"Be fine." Daryl crouches and, palm-open, brushes away the leaves on the ground. In the mud beneath is a partial track. He stands and creeps forward, following a faint hint here and there. "She thought you were twenty-two."
"She did?" Jackson asks excitedly.
"Guess you know some shit about jazz."
"Not really," the young man admits. "But she mentioned she liked jazz music, so…you know, I dropped a couple names. Jazz is not my cup of tea, but my dad was into it. My other dad."
The implication that Jackson now acknowledges him as one of his dads is not lost on Daryl, but he doesn't know how to respond to it. So, he crouches again, and when he stands, he says, "Feral hog. They don't hibernate, and where there's one, there's usually a sounder."
"Sounder?"
"A group."
"Why do we have all these different names for groups of animals?"
"Dunno. The English language is fucked up." Daryl tracks on. "A group of only boars is called a singular."
Jackson follows, rifle in hand. "Calling a group a singular seems like a contradiction in terms. Do you know any hog calls?"
"Key is to sound like a baby pig in distress," Daryl tells him. "That'll lure the sows. But you got to do it at the right time. Best when they're bedding down or feeding. Gotta find 'em first." Eyes on the ground, Daryl moves on.
[*]
The men return to camp with two feral hogs and get to work cleaning them. Michonne stops by the butcher's table. "What do they taste like?" she asks Jackson.
"I…I don't actually know," he admits. "I've never had one before."
"I thought you were a long-time hunter."
"Uh…well…not really. But I'm learning."
"The kid learns fast," Daryl says. He's trying to help Jackson out, but the look Jackson gives him makes him realize he just called him kid, and he probably doesn't want to be called kid in front of Michonne. "Man's gonna be a fine hunter," Daryl clarifies. "And you'll see how it tastes tonight."
[*]
They have a communal dinner that night and Rick brings the baby, wrapped warmly and tightly in a swaddling blanket, for everyone to admire. As the baby is passed down the picnic benches from the cradle of one set of arms to another, Rick tells them Lori's back at the houseboat sleeping. "She's been sleeping a lot."
Glenn looks down at the slumbering baby that is now in Maggie's arms. "Lori or the baby?" he asks.
"Both," Rick answers as Maggie passes the baby on. "I think maybe those pain pills Dr. Greene gave Lori are a little too strong."
Hershel smiles at his use of the word doctor. "She just had major surgery," the old man reminds him. "At the hands of our capable resident surgeon." He nods approvingly at Carol. "Lori's going to need them. You're just going to have to pick up the slack, Daddy."
"I'll help!" Carl chimes in, which earns him a smile from Addison and a look of skepticism from his father.
"Has the baby latched on yet?" Carol asks.
Rick shakes his head. "Judith still won't stay awake long enough to eat. So Lori's been pumping. It's good Daryl and Jackson found that pump."
"And got those bottles, I guess," Jackson says as Addison, beside him, coos down at the baby who is now in her arms.
"I've actually been using a medicine dropper to feed her at this point," Rick tells him. "At Hershel's suggestion. It's all I can do to get her to take anything at all. I'm basically force feeding her. She won't take the bottle."
Judith comes to Carol next, and she smiles down at the tiny sleeping face and misses Sophia painfully. When she tries to hand the bundle off to Daryl, he says, "Pass."
"Pass?" Carol asks. "There's no passing until after you've held her."
"I ain't good with babies."
"Yeah? How many babies have you held?"
"None."
"Then how do you know you aren't good with them?"
"'Cause I ain't never held one."
"Take the baby, Daryl," she insists.
He does take the baby, cautiously, carefully, like he's being handed a grenade with a loose pin that might explode with one false move. He cradles her the way he's seen the others do, and looks down at her little slumbering face. "Didn't know God made 'em that small," he murmurs.
At the sound of his voice, Judith opens her slate-blue eyes and stares up at him.
"She's looking at me!" he exclaims with such excitement that Carol can't help but smile.
"They can't see much at this age," Hershel warns. "She can't see more than eight inches away."
"Well I ain't more 'n eight inches away," Daryl insists. "Am I, sweetheart?" he coos, and then lowers his face a little closer to the baby's. Her eyes widen.
"If she's awake, this is an ideal time to try to feed her." Rick unzips the pack he brought with him that is on the ground at the end of the bench beside him and scurries to get out some of Lori's breastmilk and the dropper.
"You should warm that first," Michonne tells him. "So she'll be more receptive. Here, hand it to me, I'll roll it over the fire."
Rick gives her the container of milk. "I take it you had a baby sister?"
"Something like that," Michonne answers, her lips pursing into a grim line, and Carol knows instantly that she must have lost a child of her own. Michonne goes to warm the bottle over the fire.
Daryl smiles at the baby as Judith makes a squealing noise. "You're a little cutie," he coos. "Got blue eyes. Just like your daddy, huh?" For a moment, he must have forgotten that Rick isn't the biological father.
There's a bit of nervous shifting on either side of the picnic table. Rick says, a little coolly, "Her eye color won't come in for about six months. They all have blue or gray eyes when they're born."
"Not all of them," Michonne insists as she tests a bit of milk on the inside of her wrist.
"All of you white folk, maybe," T-Dog agrees.
"My eyes were yellow when I was born," Glenn says. "But that's because I had jaundice."
"Well, Lori has brown eyes," Andrea says. "So it will be no surprise if they turn out to be brown."
"Lori has hazel eyes," clarifies Rick, looking a little gloomy. Michonne brings him the bottle and unscrews the cap for him so he can fill the medicine dropper from it. "Would you feed her, Carol? Since you're next to Daryl?"
He hands the medicine dropper across the table, and it gets passed down to Carol. While Daryl continues to cradle the baby, she puts the tip of the dropper against the little girls lips and gently moves it until Judith opens up. The girl clamps her lips down on the dropper and Carol slowly pushes the plunger down. Judith squirms, but she does swallow, so Carol pushes a little more in. Then a little more.
"That's more than she's been taking," Rick says in surprise. "I usually have to wait longer between drops. She's so fussy."
"I think she's mesmerized by Daryl," Maggie says. "Strangely."
"You like that milk?" Daryl coos, and Carol pushes the plunger down just a little further. "You like that, don't you, sweetheart?"
When the dropper is completely empty, Carol passes it back for Rick to refill. "Not good with babies my ass," she tells Daryl.