The following day we packed up and said our goodbyes and headed off back to the commonwealth.

It was another lovely day and we took it in turns to stear the was another lovely day and we took it in turns to steer the horses. Daryl had the horn half way back and he tried to make me stop and do bits.

"what if someone comes along and sees or try's to rob us?" I asked.

"Don't be stupid and anyway I can be quick" he laughed. So we pulled over and had a quicky in the back of the cart. After we set off again I kept laughing and getting embarrassed.

"Live a little" Daryl said.

"I know it's just funny isn't it, acting like a couple of teenagers" I laughed.

We eventually got to the border of the commonwealth and transferred everything over to the big carriage that Mercer was waiting with. Daryl and I were like kids in the carriage doing bits on the sly so Mercer couldn't see.

I had to keep really quiet but it was hard. We got back to our house just before dusk, and as soon as we pulled up Judith and RJ came running up the street. I bent down and embraced them both.

"I love you two so much" I said kissing them.

Daryl picked them both up and gave them a kiss.

"We have prezzies" Daryl said.

"Yayyyy" RJ said grinning.

"Come on lets get inside, Uncle Daryl and Mercer can bring them in I want to hear all about your weekend" I said. Carol and The king were walking towards the house so I decided to put the kettle on. I sat cuddling the kids on the sofa telling them how much I had missed them and kissing them.

Carol made the drinks whilst we showed the kids their gifts. They both loved them so much. Mercer and the king put coco's gift out in the summer house in the back garden and took Judith's desk to her room. Rj was already out in the garden practising with Daryl.

When everyone had left and the boys were outside I sat with Judith letting her brush my hair.

"Judith I wanted to talk to you about something" I said.

"Yeah sure" she replied.

"So you know Daryl and I love you and RJ so much don't you?" I asked.

"Yeah and we love you" She replied.

"And you know that you are the most important people in the world to us and that is never going to change no matter what happens" I said.

"Yes of course" she laughed.

"So If Uncle Daryl and I had a baby, would that upset you two?" I asked.

"No we would love that" she squealed, "Are you pregnant?"

"No, no not yet. It's just after people get married the next step is they tend to have a baby. We have been talking about it, but we didn't want you two to feel like we didn't care about you and we were pushing you out" I said.

"No I want you to have a baby we can help you look after her and if Mom and Dad come home you and Uncle Daryl won't be lonely" she said beginning to brush my hair again.

"Well then maybe in the future we will have a baby" I smiled.

She put her arm's around my neck and kissed my temple.

"You are the best to us and you will be the best parents" she said. I squeezed her arm and kissed her back.

"That is why you are one of my favourite human's in the whole wide world" I smiled.

Daryl had some chicken that he grilled with corn and potato's on the outdoor grill for dinner, and as it was a warm night we ate out in the garden having the best time.

We all had an early night ready for the beginning of the week.

The week was slow and by Wednesday Max and I had finally finished up the filing. Our next move was to sort out the rest of the room's to make the building the town hall. We had a long road a head but it would be worth it in the end. On Thursday Carol who had been doing some digging around in the buildings that Hornsby and the others had been using for the uprising, had found something that may help us with the search for Rick. She was coming to speak with Daryl and I once the kids were in bed.

I was talking to Judith about her science project and we had decided on showing the effects of Global warming and how since all this had happened the rate of the ozone layer deteriorating had slowed down dramatically.

She was really excited about it because no one had even thought of it in her class not even her teachers had mentioned it in class.

"See I'm not as thick as you thought" I laughed.

"I knew you weren't I just thought it was bit hard seeing as you are trying to get this place up and running" she replied.

We got the kids bathed and ready for bed, and did the usual story telling from Daryl about how we lived before we found Alexandria.

Carol came round not many minutes after we put the kids to bed.

She handed us a file that told us pretty much the same as what was said in the file we had already found in the town hall but this one had a passage written by Rick saying he had been taken via helicopter by an organisation called the CRM (Civic Republic Military) they were the law enforcement of the Civic republic. He said that he was fairly high up and he wasn't happy how they treated people and they were corrupt.

"So what does this mean?" I asked.

"I don't know but the only person who will know is Sebastian and we are still searching for him" Carol said.

"There is a possibility that this CRM have taken Rick. We need to find Sebastian he is the key to all this" Daryl said.

"So then we find the prick and he will lead us to this CRM and then we find Rick" I said closing the file.

"I will look into it more and visit a few people who I think may know about this CRM" Carol said.

"We will help you anyway we can" I said to Carol.

"Mercer doesn't know about this CRM?" I asked.

"Well we will soon see tomorrow" Daryl replied.

Carol left shortly after and Daryl and I went and locked the file up in our study.

"I just want this to be sorted" I sighed.

"Me too babe" He replied.

We sat and cuddled for a while. We had come across a box set of the entire back catalogue of friends and we had been watching a few episodes a day for the last week.

We went to bed and Daryl got all frisky.

"You literally can't keep your hands off me" I said.

"I know I can't help it you are the love of my life and I find you just too sexy" he laughed.

We ended up having sex, because I just couldn't say no when he kissed my neck. I fell asleep not long after. I was woken by a sound at around 3 am. I shot up and reached for my gun that I kept in my bedside draw.

Daryl shot up "what's wrong?" he asked.

"Someone is on the porch" I whispered.

"How do you know?" he asked.

"I know okay" I said jumping out of bed. I always made sure I slept in something just in case something went down. Daryl always thought I was strange but who was laughing now he was in his birthday suit and I was ready to fight. I slipped my shoes on and headed down the stairs as Daryl rummaged around in the dark looking for clothes.

"Will you wait" he whispered so loud that he may as well have just shouted. I ignored him and walked to the bottom. I stood still listening for a few seconds, but couldn't hear anything. I walked slowly to the front door and peered through the hole. I couldn't see anything so I proceeded to check all around the the house through the curtains. As I got to the kitchen I heard it again. I flung open the back door and was about to shoot when I realised it was Dog. She had been out with Mercer for the last few days doing some training, he must have got back late and she had escaped as usual to come home. She jumped up me knocking me flying and proceeded to lick me all over. I was laughing so much. Daryl eventually came to see what the noise was and she bounded over me to get to him.

"Great husband you are, I'd be dead by now" I said getting to my feet.

"I told you to wait" he said.

I locked the back door and gave Dog a treat. We then went back to bed and she slept between us soundly all night.

I loved our little family and I couldn't wait for it to grow. I had nightmares about Sebastian that it was him at the back door and he had blamed me for his mothers death and he was trying to kill me. My alarm went off and it woke me in a panic.

"Hey hey what's up?" Daryl asked grabbing me and putting me in a bear hug.

"I had a horrible dream that Sebastian was trying to kill me" I said.

"Whilst I still have breath in my lungs No one and I mean NO ONE will ever hurt you" he said kissing my cheek.

"I hope so" I sighed snuggling into him.

I got the kids up and went down to prepare breakfast as always. Daryl was going to speak to Mercer and the rest of our crew to see what we would do about Sebastian and this CRM.

He took his breakfast to go after giving us all a kiss before he left. I took the kids to school before coming back home to get ready for work. I was doing a record of birth and a marriage in the morning and then I had to sort out wages and the new development. Then a meeting with the rest of the cabinet Daryl and I had picked to help discuss the way we would have the judicial system in the commonwealth. It was a very long day and I was so glad to get home.

Rosita had gotten the kids for me and when I got back they came running out.

"Daryl not back yet?" I asked Rosita.

"he came back, but he said he had to go as he had a lead on where Seb might be so he would be back later and he would warm his dinner up later.

The kids and I got in the house and all got in our comfy clothes. They played whilst I did the dinner. I made spaghetti and hot dogs for the kids because it was their favourite. And I made Daryl and I chicken parmigiana with garlic and herb butter potatoes and asparagus spears.

I sat eating mine at the table on my own whilst I let the kids watch Toy Story on DVD.

They sat giggling and it melted my heart.

The door went and I jumped up with a mouth full of chicken. The kids didn't even acknowledge it, which I was glad about because that meant they felt safe now.

I on the other hand never felt safe, I grabbed the bat and went to the door. I looked through the spy hole and saw it was Carol. I let her in and closed the door behind her.

"Daryl won't be back till in the morning" she said.

"Why?" I asked.

"He is staking out a place, because they think he will be back soon" she replied.

"Sebastian?" I asked.

"Yeah" she replied.

"Okay cool" I said feeling worried. But I didn't want Carol to know.

"do you need anything?" she asked.

"No I'm good, the kids are good" I smiled.

She left and I finished my dinner. I cleared everything away and then took some candy into the living room to share with the kids.

We snuggled on the sofa watching Toy story 2.

"Where's uncle Daryl?" Judith asked.

"he's had to do something for the community" I lied.

"When will he be home?" she asked.

"tommorow" I replied, "I was thinking maybe the weekend we would go and visit Aunt Maggie and Hersh"

"Yes I would love that. You always be away weekends looking for Dad. I am happy that you are but I miss you and sometimes I just want to spend time with you and Uncle Daryl and RJ" she said.

"I thought you wanted me to find DAd?" I said.

"course I do but as well, if he was going to coae back he would have by now" she sighed.

"Okay so this is the deal. You and RJ can have the day off school tomorrow and Monday and we will go and visit Auntie Maggie and then we can stop by Alexandria and you can see your new room. Plus Nabila and the kids are coming back so we can travel back together" I said.

"I am going to pack" she said jumping up kissing me and running off upstairs. RJ had passed out, so I carried him up stairs and put him to bed.

I packed a bag for RJ and started packing mine and Daryl's.

As I was finishing up the door bell went. I jumped up feeling worried and grabbed the gun from the door.

"It's Uncle Daryl" Judith shouted.

"how do you know?" I asked.

"I saw him and Doggo out my window" she replied.

I went down stairs and let them in. Daryl gave me a big kiss and a hug.

"You're back early" I said.

"Yeah turned out to be a bust he wasn't there" he replied.

"Gutted, don't worry we will find him" I sighed.

"Did you throw my dinner away?" he asked.

"No I will sort it for you now. You get washed up and it will be ready" I smiled.

"I love you I do" he said kissing me again.

"Oh Judith has something to tell you, and you can't say no because she got upset and she rules the roost here you know this" I laughed.

"I dread what I am letting myself in for" he laughed.

He ran off upstairs and I warmed his dinner up.

Daryl came back down as I was opening him a beer.

"I can't just leave without warning" Daryl said.

"Yes you can" I said.

"Mia you know I'm on to something with this Seb business" He replied.

"Judith wants us to go she said she wants to spend a weekend with us because we are never here. She said she doesn't care that we aren't looking for Rick she thinks he should have come back by himself" I said.

"You know he could be unable to get back" Daryl said sharply.

"Look we have looked for him for a long time now, what is one weekend?" I snapped back.

"It's been two though" he replied.

"I don't care, we shouldn't keep leaving them with other people. We are the ones who took them on, they at school all week, you work late most nights. It's not fair, we are supposed to be making life better for them, not worse" I replied.

Daryl didn't speak for a while, he just ate his dinner. I folded my arms and gave him the death stare.

"Okay calm down we will go" he grinned.

"Good the cabinet and Mercer can look after this place there is nothing to worry about" I replied.

I radioed into Mercer's house telling him we needed horse and a big cart for early in the morning and that he was in charge till Monday.

After Daryl had eaten I washed up and went to bed as we were to set out early.