AN: Here we go, another chapter here. I'm sorry that everything is so slow, but I'm incredibly busy lately. I hardly have any time to do things like write. I apologize for that, but more is coming.

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

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"I think I can read the signs pretty well," Carol said. "Bringing a baby in here would be like...it would be guaranteeing..."

She didn't have to finish. She wasn't going to finish either. Her voice was already getting that thin and dry sound to it that it sometimes got before it seemed to fade out entirely. Daryl understood what she was saying—he'd understood it for the past half hour or hour or however long they'd been going back and forth since he'd brought her up from the training area—but he wasn't accepting it.

"Carol—we are not...kryptonite for children," Daryl said. "You are not kryptonite for children," he added quickly, not giving her time to even say the words that he could seem to see forming in her mouth. "If we could go back? Things might be different. It might all be different."

Carol shook her head at him. She kept her eyes locked on him, and she shook her head. Then she sighed and she studied the floor for a moment, but she didn't let up on the shaking.

"I can't do this," she said. "There are so many more people here. There are people who want children. People who would be happy to have her."

"You could feed her," Daryl said. "You could give her what she needs."

"Maggie..." Carol started. Daryl interrupted her before she could get too far with that train of thought.

"Don't you think I didn't talk to them," Daryl said. "I did. Went straight there after I got her checked out. They're movin' to Hilltop. They don't want to try to move with two kids—and I don't blame them one bit. Maggie's got her hands full enough with Hershel. And anybody else around here? We got nobody else right now that could feed her. She'd be eating up what little bit of formula we've found and that don't make no sense when we could save that for when we've really got an emergency—and no other options."

Daryl knew well the look on Carol's face. She knew that he was telling the truth, but it didn't mean that she wanted to agree with him. She didn't want to accept it. But, at least if she was agreeing with him, it meant that they were making progress from the absolute and definitive "No" she'd given him to begin with.

"We're the best chance she's got," Daryl said. "You know it's true. We're probably two of the only people around here that could—Carol? We could protect her if we had to go on the road. You and me? We could protect her out there. Prob'ly better than anybody could. We sure can protect her in here."

Carol was finally looking at him again. She was swallowing, repeatedly, the action visible with the continuous bobbing of her throat. She shook her head gently, but this time it was with a great deal less conviction than before.

"Maision," she said softly. She let it trail off at his name, though. She didn't add anything to it. Daryl waited her out for a moment, just to see if she might go in some direction that he wasn't expecting, but she never finished for him.

Now it was Daryl's turn to shake his head.

"What happened to Maison?" He said, his own throat suddenly tightening to the point that he felt it necessary to try to clear it—as though something were stuck there even though it had been hours since he'd eaten. "What happened to him? Denise said it weren't us. Just—one of those things."

"One of those things," Carol repeated back to him softly. The corners of her mouth turned up gently, but Daryl didn't mistake the smile as anything sincere. She shook her head at him again, a little of her earlier conviction returning. "I can't do this," Carol said. "I've got milk. And—if someone needs it? I'll...pump it and give it to them. But that's all that I can do."

Daryl ran his tongue around his teeth and considered her. He was trying to read her. He was trying to tell if there was room for him to change her mind or not. Admittedly, he'd had his doubts about the whole thing, but the more that he talked to her about it, the more he became certain that he wanted the little girl. He became certain that, as Glenn had said, she needed them. And they needed her.

He had talked himself into a position where he couldn't imagine that there could be anything negative to come from the arrangement.

Their house, after all, was ready for a baby. The nursery was ready for a baby. The clothes were gathered. The blankets were gathered, clean, and folded. Cloth diapers were folded on a changing table that had rarely been used. Daryl, himself, had found a few sets of crib sheets and only one of them had even been taken out of its packaging.

They were ready for a baby. They had been more than ready for one. They'd been excited for what it could mean for them and for their lives together. The days before Maison had come, they'd both been almost giddy with the expectation. And in the days that he'd been there? Daryl couldn't remember having ever felt that happy. That whole. And he'd certainly never seen Carol the way that she was when she tended the little boy.

Life had always been precious, but it was even more precious in a world where death seemed to prevail.

Maison would never come back to them. With any luck, and with the help of Denise who was sure that she could do something to keep it from happening, they'd never have another baby of their own. But that didn't mean that they couldn't have a child. It didn't mean that they couldn't be parents. It didn't mean that they'd never have the chance to share that part of their lives together.

There was a tiny little girl who needed them, and they needed her. It was the best fit that there could possibly be.

"Carol—she needs the milk, but she needs more than that," Daryl said. "She's gotta have—somebody to hold her. She's gotta have somebody to care about her. Somebody that's gonna—teach her how to survive."

"And someone will do that," Carol said. "Someone around here has to want her, Daryl. Just because you asked Glenn and Maggie and they said no? That doesn't mean there's nobody who wants her. Ask Michonne, even. Ask anyone. You find someone who wants her and you can tell them that I'll give them whatever milk I can."

Daryl swallowed. He nodded his head at her, slowly and gently.

She was tense. It looked like she was almost bowed up at him. She was preparing to pounce if she felt the need to do it. Immediately, when he nodded at her, he saw her muscles relax. Her shoulders dropped forward. Then they almost seemed to sag under the collected weight of everything she was carrying on them. She let out a breath. She looked lighter if not more exhausted.

Daryl swallowed again.

"I guess I'm gonna be back," he said.

"You do what you need to do," Carol said.

Daryl nodded again.

"I'ma do what I need to do," Daryl said. "You—think you could start pumping? Have something ready for her? I don't know how long she's been without eating. Don't know how long that formula's gonna hold her over."

Carol nodded her acceptance of the plan.

"I'll have milk ready," she said. "For whoever needs it. They can—they can pick it up or...I could take it to them. Whichever they want."

"You just keep it here," Daryl said. "Because—I'm bringing her back here."

Carol opened her mouth at Daryl, but no words came out to put whatever thoughts she was having into spoken language.

"I want her," Daryl said. "You said find somebody that wants her and—Carol? I want her. We lost Maison. And you know how sorry I am for that. Hell—don't an hour go by that I don't think about him. Wish he was still here. Wish..." Daryl broke off, cleared his throat again to remove the imaginary obstruction, and then he continued. "Wish I could—we could just—hold him again. I think I hear him crying. All the damn time. Today? When I heard her crying? I thought—I was just hearing him. In my head. Didn't even realize that everybody else could hear it too because I'm so damn used to being the only one that can—that can hear him..."

Carol shook her head at him. Her lips were pressed so tightly together that they almost disappeared into each other.

Daryl understood. He wasn't the only one that heard him.

"I wonder—what the hell he'd have been like," Daryl said. "Get mad sometimes because..."

But then it was his turn to break off. He could tell Carol that he got mad because it didn't seem fair. He could tell her that, sometimes, he saw Maggie or Glenn with Hershel and his chest ached. It wasn't that he wished for them to lose their child, but he did question why it was that he and Carol had to lose theirs. Even, for a moment, when he'd seen the little girl he'd almost been furious that, out there, someone else had gotten to keep theirs while he and Carol had put their child to rest in a rudimentarily made box in the ground.

But he didn't have to tell Carol that. She would understand it even without him saying it. He saw the same thing, sometimes, as it flashed across her features. He knew that's why she often had to leave places when someone brought Hershel in. She begrudged no one their loved ones, but it didn't mean that she was ready to accept that, for some reason, she wasn't allowed her own.

"I want her," Daryl said. "And I think you're gonna love her. At least—you're gonna like her. She's a pretty little thing. She fusses, but—it's because she's scared. She's hungry. You're gonna like her when you see her."

Carol shook her head gently at him.

"I don't doubt that I would...like her," Carol said. "I just—don't—I just—can't."

Daryl decided, in that moment, he wasn't going to let her win. He let her win most things. Since they'd made their relationship official and since they'd moved in together, Daryl had tried to give Carol everything she wanted. He'd tried to make everything just the way that she might like it. She deserved that, after all, and he got a warm happiness from seeing her pleased with something—no matter how small it was. This time, though, it was going to be Daryl that won. One way or another.

He set his face on purpose, hoping it conveyed his conviction, and then he nodded his head at her.

"I hope you change your mind," Daryl said. "And—I think you will. But, if you don't want to see her right now? You'll just leave the milk for me—just like you said you would for whoever wanted her—and I'll handle the rest of it."

Carol almost looked more amused than she looked irritated. Almost.

"You're going to take care of a newborn on your own?" Carol asked.

Daryl nodded.

"You hated taking half the wake up shifts," Carol said.

Daryl shrugged.

"Do what'cha gotta do," he responded.

"You think that you're going to bring her here," Carol said. "And that—I'm going to take care of her. That I'm going to want to take care of her."

Daryl shook his head.

"You just leave the milk for me," Daryl said. "I'll keep her out of your way. You stay out of hers. Until you're ready. When you're ready..." He stopped, but then he ignored her head shaking. She might not be ready right now. That much might be true. It might take her another hour—or even a month or two—to work up the courage to face the infant, but eventually she'd be ready. Daryl knew her. He knew her better, sometimes, than he knew himself. "You just leave it to me."

He decided to seal things at that point by simply leaving Carol there, in the kitchen where they seemed to have most of their discussions, and heading for the front door of their house.

"Daryl..." Carol called. He stalled his steps, but he didn't look back at her. He was keeping his back to her to keep the conversation as "closed" as it could be for the moment. He wanted her to have her time to think—and to do whatever else she might need to do in his absence. "You don't even realize that I'm not good for her. Having her here—it isn't good for her."

Daryl swallowed.

"Best thing for her," Daryl responded, keeping his back to Carol. "Best thing for her. Best thing for me. And—sometime? Best thing for you. You don't even realize that. But—you will. She's gonna be hungry when I get back."

Definitively sealing the conversation for the moment, Daryl picked up his steps again and left the house before Carol responded to him. Slowly, making sure to give her as much time as possible and also to give himself time to fully think about what he'd signed up for, Daryl made his way back toward the pantry to find Olivia and relieve her of her cargo.

His daughter.