AN: Here's a little oneshot. This is thanks to the prompt a friend offered to me to get me out of my Friday moody-mood.

I own nothing from the Walking Dead.

I hope you enjoy! Please don't forget to let me know what you think!

111

"This is serious," Sophia said.

Daryl fixed his face as much as he could, hoping to satisfy the four-year-old and smooth the wrinkles between her little brows.

"I know it is," Daryl agreed.

He did know it was serious. At least, it was serious to Sophia, and that meant it had to be serious to Daryl. Her little bottom lip rolled out and she hugged her teddy bear, Charlie, a little tighter against her chest.

"MJ can do it," Sophia said. "And Dusty, too."

"And you can do it, too, Soph," Daryl assured her. "You wanna do it. So, you can. You just—do it."

"It's not that easy, Daddy," she said sincerely.

"What'cha so scared of?" Daryl asked. "No—don't'cha make that face at me, Soph. I'm serious. You couldn't never tell me what it was that scared you. First year, we figured it was because Santa tried to take you from your ma. Wanted to hold you, and you weren't havin' a single damn bit of that. After that? Hell—we didn't know."

Sophia was terribly afraid of Santa Clause. Every year, a local retired man and his wife volunteered to play Santa Clause and Mrs. Clause for the town. For the whole month of December, they dedicated six nights a week, for a few hours each night, to sitting in the specially decorated City Museum downtown – which had once been a train depot—and taking pictures with the children. Each child could have their picture made with each of the Clauses individually or together. At the end of the visit, they got a candy cane donated by the city in large batches.

Sophia had been going since her first Christmas. The first Christmas, she'd pitched a fit and howled so pathetically over Santa's very existence that the old man had looked like he might cry. The only way they'd gotten a picture with her at all was to take her on a walk around the square to look at the Christmas lights and calm down, and then Carol had held her while she stood behind Santa—and he had been extra careful not to make eye contact with the baby again.

Each year, they talked Santa and Mrs. Clause up. Each year, they did their best to read Santa stories, watch Santa movies, and hype up how very wonderful it would be to see Santa in person. Each year, Sophia seemed excited until she saw the jolly old soul in his red suit.

They had moved her closer to Santa each year, and her pictures showed a clear progression as she fought her fears of the head elf of the North Pole, but so far she'd only managed to get close enough to Santa to sit on the floor at his feet—a fair distance from his actual black boot—and she'd refused to let him touch her.

Mrs. Clause she was a bit warmer to, but it was clear that she didn't trust her at all the moment that she tried to sell her husband as anything short of an axe murderer.

But Sophia's cousins had already been to see Santa this year, and both of them had sat on the old man's knee without so much as a whimper. In fact, they weren't afraid of Santa at all. They weren't afraid of anything.

The one thing that Sophia couldn't abide was someone seeing her as less "Dixon" than her boy cousins—MJ, who was older than her, and Dusty, who was born when Sophia was three months old and Daryl had first met Carol.

Despite the fact that she wasn't Daryl's biological daughter, Sophia was full-blooded Dixon in her mind, and she was always determined to prove herself as the most Dixonesque Dixon that ever lived.

The Santa problem was real.

"Just—tell me what'cha scared of and we'll figure it out, Soph," Daryl pressed when Sophia didn't immediately respond to him. "Don't we always figure it out?"

She twisted her bear's paw.

"I don't know, Daddy," she lamented, stretching the words out. "He's just…scary."

"He ain't scary, though, Soph. Brings you toys, don't he? Ain't you asked him for that rag doll? Weren't that what you had your mama write in your letter? Just like the one in that storybook?"

Sophia nodded her head.

"And ain't he the one that brought you Charlie, here?" Daryl asked, poking the beloved old bear in the chest with his fingertip.

"That's what you said," Sophia said.

Daryl laughed.

"I ever lied to you before?" He asked. She shook her head. "Then—why am I gonna start now, Soph? Santa ain't scary. He's just a nice old man that…loves kids. He wants to take a picture with you. Give you a candy cane. Bring you that doll and some other toys you want on Christmas."

"It's just scary," Sophia said, lowering her voice to a whisper, not that anyone was listening to them.

"You wanna do it or you don't?" Daryl asked with a sigh.

"I don't know how," Sophia whined.

"You wanna do it, though?" Daryl asked.

Sophia nodded.

"Then—Daddy'll figure it out," Daryl said.

"Really?"

"Really," Daryl assured her. "Go on, now. Lay down. Let's get some sleep."

"Can you read the gingerbread story?" Sophia asked.

"We gonna read the Santa story," Daryl said. "Start seein' him for what he really is."

111

"Hershel Greene," the old man said, offering a hand out to Daryl. "Call me Hershel."

If Daryl hadn't known better, he would believe the retiree was the actual to goodness Santa Clause. His wife, Jo, was just as perfect as Mrs. Clause as he was as Santa. Daryl had gotten there early, about a half hour before they'd been scheduled to get started with the day's pictures, and he'd asked one of the people dressed as an elf if it might be possible to have just one moment to speak to Santa.

"Daryl Dixon," Daryl said, shaking the man's hand. "Daryl. I know you. Not real good, but I mean I've seen you here and when you do the little petting zoo thing in the summer. We go to that every year." Daryl laughed at the thought that flitted through his mind. "Thing is—my daughter ain't scared of you there. Only scared of you when you're Santa."

Hershel laughed. His beard and white hair were real. He trimmed them both shorter in the summer, but they were real. He was a relatively thin Santa, but nobody seemed to mind. He was plenty jolly enough to make up for the fact that his belly didn't exactly shake like a bowl full of jelly. Like his wife, his cheeks and nose were dusted with pink make-up to give the appearance of having come from a much colder climate than the relatively mild Georgia winter offered.

"It always breaks my heart when the little ones are scared," Hershel said. "No child should be scared at Christmas."

"And not scared of Santa," Daryl said. "It's just—she was like ten months old the first time you met her. You tried to take her from Carol. Not—it weren't no bad thing, just you was gonna hold her. She ain't wanted no part of that, and I feel like somethin' got stuck in there. We gotta un-stick them memories or something."

"You have something in mind?" Hershel asked.

"You willin' to help?" Daryl asked.

Hershel smiled at him.

"What else would Santa do except try his best to bring some joy to a child at Christmas?" He asked with a wink. "What did you have in mind?"

111

A guest wasn't anything to be alarmed about. Daryl and Carol often had people over that they knew from work. Carol had been married before Daryl, and her ex-husband had been very abusive. His abuse, in fact, was what had led to the abrupt end of their marriage when Sophia had been very young, and it had led to him losing custody of his daughter—custody that he hadn't bothered to fight for in the least. When they had been married, he'd forbidden Carol to have friends. Daryl went the opposite direction with that and, instead of forbidding it, he urged her to make friends because he knew that she enjoyed having friends a great deal.

Sophia liked their friends, as well, because they often cooed over her. She was, currently, their only child—though they did hope for others in the future, and were teasing each other that they'd both asked Santa for the same thing for Christmas this year—and she got a lot of attention because of it.

Tonight, Sophia had eagerly come from her room to greet their new friend, but she'd stopped short and dropped her bear when she'd seen the red-suit clad guest that sat on her couch.

Hershel Greene, dressed as Santa, smiled at Sophia. He leaned forward, putting himself more at her level.

"Hello, Sophia," he said. "My—you've grown since I saw you last year. Are you taking good care of Charlie?"

Sophia's stance relaxed slightly, and she retrieved Charlie from the floor beside her. She nodded at Santa—her nemesis until now—but didn't speak.

"Good," Hershel said. "He was a very good bear when he lived at the North Pole—oh—what? Three years ago, now? He so wanted to be the special friend of a very special little girl like yourself. I told him I had found the perfect one to love him forever."

"I love him," Sophia offered.

"I know you do," Hershel said. "And—because I knew that, I knew you'd be perfect for a very important job that I have that needs doing. That's why I came here early this year. I talked to your parents, and I told them that—I just didn't think it could wait until Christmas morning."

"What is it?" Sophia asked. Her sense of intrigue and curiosity far outweighed her fear for a moment.

"You see," Hershel said, "just like Charlie was a very special bear that needed a very special little girl, I had someone else who really needed a new home. She was so sad, though, that I didn't feel like she should wait until Christmas. I wanted her to have her cheer now, so that she could enjoy her happiness all the way through Christmas and beyond that. She needed a very special little girl, though. The most special. And I thought that you might be just the one to love her the way that she needs. What do you think about that? Do you think—you could love someone for me? Now, before Christmas, because she's sad and needs a very special little girl like you?"

Sophia's eyes were big, but Daryl thought they were also a little damp. Sophia, who was very much like her mother in a lot of ways, had a big and tender heart. She loved incredibly deeply for such a young and tiny little thing.

"I could love her," Sophia agreed, not even knowing who "she" might be besides someone who needed love and attention. With Sophia, it didn't matter. If she thought anything needed to be loved, she would love it.

"Good," Hershel said. From behind his back, he pulled the package that Daryl had brought him. He offered it out to Sophia, and she moved close enough to him to take it. She looked around for what to do with Charlie, and he offered a hand out. "I'll hold Charlie," he assured her.

Sophia allowed him to take her bear, and she worked to open the package. Without realizing what she was doing, perhaps, she allowed him to help her with the package. Soon, she freed the rag doll with the red yarn hair, painted on face, and blue gingham dress—just like the one in one of her storybooks.

Sophia smiled at the doll. She smiled at Daryl, at Carol, and finally at Santa Clause.

"Her name is Matilda," Hershel said. "And—it looks like she's not sad anymore, so you must be the perfect little girl to love her."

"I am!" Sophia assured him.

"What do you say, Sophia?" Carol pressed.

Nobody forced Sophia to get any closer to the rosy-cheeked, red-clad man. They had decided to simply see what she would do when she was given a chance to interact with him in a friendly manner and in a neutral space—without having to also deal with the overwhelming sounds of other children and the overall feeling that could sometimes come with a large crowd gathered at the old depot.

Sophia surprised them all, though, when she rushed toward the old man and offered him a hug. He reached down, accepted her hug, and then gently lifted her to rest her on his knee. She leaned against him the way she might if Daryl had placed her in his lap.

"Oh," he said, hugging her warmly, "I know you'll be perfect for Matilda, because I'm not sad anymore, either, after such a special hug."

111

Sophia sat perched on Santa's knee in her plaid Christmas dress and smiled broadly for her picture as she hugged Matilda. She'd insisted on bringing the doll to see Santa—a whole, long week after his visit—so that he could see how well she was doing. Daryl didn't know if she was proud for finally getting the same "brave" picture as her cousins, or if she'd forgotten about that entirely in light of her new personal friendship with Father Christmas.

She hugged Hershel tightly before he slipped her off his knee to send her on toward Mrs. Clause and a candy cane.

"We're gonna see each other again?" Sophia asked.

Hershel smiled at her and nodded.

"You'll see me again next year," he assured her. "But—I'll tell you a secret. Come here, you have to lean close." Daryl, too, leaned just a little closer to overhear the not-so whispered secret. "If you look for me, you may see me throughout the whole year."

"Aren't you at the North Pole?" Sophia whispered back.

"I am," he said. "But—I travel a little. Remember—I'm always watching."

"In case I'm bad?" Sophia asked with a frown.

"If that's necessary," he said. "But—it never will be, right? You'll always be good?" Sophia nodded. "Mostly, I'm just watching out in case you need me."

Sophia glanced at Daryl over her shoulder.

"Like my daddy?" She whispered.

Hershel smiled.

"I am Father Christmas, you know," he said.

"You'll come if I need you?" Sophia asked. "Like Daddy?"

"I came last week, didn't I?" Hershel asked. He winked at Sophia and gave her a warm smile. She smiled back—an understanding passing between the two of them.

The Santa Clause problem, it seemed, wasn't such a problem anymore.