AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

It's a little "family time." There will be a lot going on for this little family in the future. I hope you guys don't get sick of the warm fuzzies with a bit of angst every now and again, because (fortunately or unfortunately) that's what this one is going to be.

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

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"You gotta close your eyes now," Daryl said. "It don't work if you don't close your eyes."

Sophia did close her eyes. It wouldn't have taken too much prompting, though. As soon as Daryl pressed his palms—slathered with the lotion that he'd warmed between them—against her back and rubbed with just the slightest bit of pressure, Sophia's whole body relaxed with satisfaction.

Daryl swept his fingers across her skin and kneaded her tiny muscles with his fingertips. She had come in from playing with Beth to see him giving Carol a back massage in their cell—a way he often passed the time while they discussed anything they needed to talk over, and there were a lot of plans to be made for the future of their family—and she'd been immediately jealous. She needed such a thing in her life, and she was sure of it. Daryl had considered it, and he'd decided there was no harm in offering his daughter a back massage.

So, he'd promised her that, after her bath, he'd give her one as he slathered her down with the lotion that she was accustomed to being coated with after she was clean.

Daryl didn't stop at back massage. Instead, he applied the lotion to her body as he always did but, instead of simply slathering it on before he tucked her into her ducky pajamas, he took his time to massage her. He massaged her tiny arms between his fingers. He rolled her tiny fingers in his and rubbed her feet with his thumbs. By the time he finished, Sophia was practically a human-shaped wet noodle in his arms. She offered him very little help as he worked her into her clean pajamas and lowered her into her playpen.

When she was settled, Daryl tucked her blanket around her. He offered her the lamb that she treasured and she cuddled it against her face.

"You settled?" Daryl asked. She hummed at him and peered at him through slits. "You need somethin' else?" She hummed again. Her hums had been neither clearly affirmative nor negative, but if she'd actually needed or greatly desired anything, she would have given voice to that. "Goodnight then. Sweet dreams, Soph. I love you."

"Love you, Daddy," Sophia breathed out, her words barely taking shape.

The playpen near Sophia was abandoned for the time being. Lori and Rick must have their youngest with them. She would, eventually, be moved to the playpen to sleep.

Eventually, Sophia would have a room all her own in one of the converted cells near Daryl and Carol. That was a project that Daryl hoped to start soon—a personal project among many community projects that had been planned at table meetings with members of their new somewhat sister-community—but it wasn't a project that he would start that night.

In the corridor, on his way back to the cell that he called home, Daryl practically bumped into Andrea. She smiled at him, and offered an apology for nearly running into him.

"You couldn't see me over all that shit," Daryl said, gesturing to her over-filled arms. "My bad. I shoulda been looking." Andrea's arms were practically overflowing with everything she was trying to carry. "You—need a hand?"

"No," Andrea said. "Thank you. I'm—going to take a bath. Merle's waiting for me. He's warming up some water for us."

Daryl laughed to himself.

"Now I know you done somethin' to my brother," Daryl said. "You got him bathin' regular and everything."

Daryl winked at Andrea to let her know he was teasing when she looked a little taken aback. A smile replaced her concern.

"He can only be convinced to act civilized when he wants something," Andrea said. "It's bribery."

"It's a good woman," Daryl offered. "Somethin' he ain't never had before. Glad he found it. But—just be a little patient with him. He don't always know how to act."

Andrea nodded.

"I think he's figuring it out," she offered. "Goodnight, Daryl."

"Night," he said.

"Tell Carol I said goodnight?" Andrea requested.

"On my way now," Daryl said. "Tell Merle I said—fuckin' behave."

Andrea laughed to herself.

"Wouldn't be any fun if he did," she teased.

"Spoken like Merle his own damn self," Daryl said as he took his leave of Andrea and made his way back to the cell where Carol was sitting in bed, reading a book and waiting for him. She peered at him over the top of the reading glasses that sat perched on her nose and smiled at him.

She was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. And Daryl wasn't sure if she didn't have some kind of magic spell that kept her just getting more and more beautiful every day.

"She asleep?" Carol asked.

"Prob'ly out cold by now," Daryl said. "Damn near couldn't hold out for me to leave. Might be somethin' to them massages. Never thought of it with her bein' little."

"She deserves to relax, too," Carol said.

Daryl sat down on the edge of their bed—a bed that very nearly took up all the room in their cell but was more than worth it—and leaned to kiss Carol. She met him with a kiss that she clearly meant.

"You're very good at massages, too," Carol said when the kiss broke. "I don't think you should discredit the role of your skill in all this."

"You play your cards right," Daryl said, "an' I might just have a whole body massage in store for you tonight 'fore you close your eyes. Send you off right to sleep."

Carol smiled at him.

"As long as mine is special…and has a happy ending," Carol challenged.

Daryl felt his cheeks ache. He couldn't help but smile at her. She knew how to draw it out of him.

"You sure is hungry, ain't you?" He teased. "You runnin' me tired—first that lil' trot off after breakfast an' then that emergency you had while Soph was with Beth."

Carol sighed.

"I know," she said. She patted her stomach. "I think it might be…" She didn't tell him what she thought it was—at least not in so many words, but he read her gesture. His chest tightened and his stomach fluttered at the mention of the baby. Every time she mentioned the existence of the little thing, it nearly robbed Daryl of his breath just to be reminded that it was there, it was growing and, one day, if they were so blessed, it would be there. He reached his hand out and rested it where hers was pressed against her belly. She moved her hand to let him rub her. "Am I too horrible? I don't want to—drive you away or something."

Daryl laughed to himself.

"You couldn't drive me away with a pitchfork, a swarm of hornets, an' a fuckin' wildfire set on followin' my ass an' burnin' me up," Daryl offered. "But what does it do to make you—ya know—want so much lovin'?"

Carol shrugged her shoulders.

"Hormones, I guess," she offered. Daryl saw her cheeks blush pink in the lamplight that illuminated their cell. "I feel like I could—climb you like a tree."

Daryl felt his own cheeks burn hot when her words made parts of his anatomy slowly wake from the slumber they'd been enjoying for the past few hours.

"Shit—I do like it when you talkin' to me like that," Daryl said.

"You don't think it makes me sound—like a…like a whore or something?" Carol asked.

Apparently, her ex-husband, may his soul burn for all eternity as far as Daryl was concerned, had felt the need to call Carol a whore every time she even so much as expressed slight interest in something sexual. That, coupled with the years that he'd apparently spent telling her she was terrible at everything sexual and teaching her that sex was meant for nothing beyond his satisfaction—occurring when and how he wanted it—had burned into Carol's mind that something was inherently wrong with her desires.

Though Daryl had promised her a thousand times that he enjoyed being with her, and that he enjoyed knowing that she enjoyed being with him, her insecurities sometimes came flaring back up. And Daryl was patient with her because he understood—and she was always patient with him.

"Only if you bein' my whore," Daryl teased. "An' I don't see no problem with that at all." She frowned at him. "It's good—healthy. I like it."

Deciding that actions spoke louder than words, Daryl moved his hand. He snaked it up to find the band to her pajama pants. He found the band to her cotton underwear beyond that. He found his way inside them and slipped his fingers down to find her center. She spread her legs a little to allow him access, dropped her book to the side, and closed her eyes. When she parted her lips, clearly prepared to fully enjoy whatever he gave her, Daryl's whole body cried out in response and his brain sent a rush of blood southward to prepare to offer her everything she might need—anything she might desire.

Daryl slipped his fingers between her moist folds and teased her, his thumb finding the other spot she desired. It was enough, and he knew it, to caress her this way. He had learned her body well enough that he was confident that he could tease a chain of orgasms out of her without changing his position much.

And he greatly enjoyed teasing them out of her—one after another. He wasn't a man who was too interested in having a great deal of power over the woman he loved, but that was one power that he treasured having.

"You like it?" He asked, teasing her. He moved just like he knew she'd want and she shifted her body to allow him more room to move and manipulate her. "You want it?" He asked. She tossed her head back into the pillows she was propped against. Her head moved like her neck was no longer capable of fully supporting it. She made a sound that was caught between a gurgle and a growl. "Shit…" Daryl breathed out. He leaned against her. He kissed her lips and her jaw. His other hand went seeking her breast inside her pajama shirt and he teased her nipple. "That what'cha need?" He growled. He pressed his head against her. Quickly, and only abandoning the claim he had on her breast, he allowed his hand to work loose the button and zipper of his pants. He worked them down enough to free himself. Before he could do anything, Carol's hand reached out and wrapped her fingers around him.

He made eye contact with her—her eyes were practically glazed over from what pleasure she'd already gotten from him—and she smiled.

"What you give to me…" Carol said.

"You give me back a tenfold," Daryl offered.

He kissed her and she returned the kiss. It was long and lingering. Daryl enjoyed the taste of it for a moment before he returned to the work that he'd been doing. Now, as he did his best to focus on what he knew that Carol would find enjoyable, she focused on doing the same for him.

Together, they found release with him finding relief only a moment after her.

Panting and satisfied, Daryl searched out Carol's lips again and she accepted the kiss and moaned into his mouth.

"We don't even get undressed," Daryl offered with a laugh. He sat up enough to find a handkerchief. He wiped his fingers before he offered it to Carol to clean her hand.

"Are you complaining?" Carol asked.

"Did it scratch your itch?" Daryl asked. He leaned, pushed her pajama shirt out of the way enough, and planted a soft kiss just below her belly button. "Did it—get'cha what'cha need to be satisfied?"

Carol laughed and dropped her hand to gently run her fingers through Daryl's hair.

"For—at least another half an hour," Carol said with a sigh.

"I'll be on call when you need me," Daryl said with a laugh. He kissed her once more and stood up to work his way out of his clothes. "What was you readin', anyway? Before I interrupted. One of your sexy books?"

Many years ago, in the CDC, Daryl had discovered that Carol was a fan of a certain kind of book. As a result, he had a habit of bringing her those books if he happened to stumble across them while on runs. Carol was a fan of these books with half-naked people on the cover. There was always some cavorting and a ridiculous romance that took strangers from meeting each other to being hot and heavy in a matter of minutes. They were always set in some exotic place and there was plenty of heaving bosoms and throbbing members to go around.

Sometimes, when a part was particularly good, Daryl let Carol read it to him. If she really liked it, and she let him know that by dog-earing the corners of the parts she really liked, he would re-read those parts a couple of times before he gave it his best effort to bring them to life. The setting for them never actually changed, of course. They were always in a cell, converted to a bedroom, in a prison in Georgia, but they could pretend they were in a vineyard in France or somewhere else that Daryl couldn't even imagine.

It didn't matter to him. All that mattered to him was that the were there together.

And even though Carol did a good bit of struggling to catch her breath if he could get her just right, and though he felt a decent enough amount of throbbing going on in his cock when she was driving him out of his skull, he wasn't so sure that he did a great job of bringing her books to life. But she didn't seem to care about the details that much.

For Carol, really, it seemed to be the thought that mattered. And, like Daryl, she seemed to only care too much that it was the two of them who were having one illicit affair after another—wherever they took place.

Carol sighed, shifted around with some air of satisfaction in the bed, and looked at the cover of the book. It was one of those that he'd brought her. She closed it and tossed it at the nightstand. Her reading glasses followed after the book.

"It's one about—medieval times. You know. Castles and all that."

"Not no good?" Daryl asked.

"It was," Carol said. "But next to the real thing?"

Daryl smiled at her. He stepped out of his underwear as his final piece of clothing. He made the decision, without asking her if she agreed, that he wouldn't need them during the night. He leaned over and glanced at the cover of the book.

"I don't compare in no kinda way to that fancy-ass knight there," Daryl said.

"No," Carol said, shaking her head at him. "You don't." He frowned at her and she wiggled around, clearly working her way out of her pajama bottoms beneath the cover. She smiled at him, and winked at him, too, as she tossed them over the side of the bed and flicked the cover back. "You're a thousand times better," she said, reaching her arms out toward him.

"Gonna be a minute," he promised her, happily coming to join her in bed. As soon as he was settled, she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him.

"We've got all night," she assured him. "And you can tell me all about the plans you were making earlier."