When she felt the warm trickle of fluid down her legs, she knew it wasn't false labor. A horrible cramp started at her back and radiated into her stomach. She leaned against the wall, suffering cramping and tightening that began at the top of her uterus and spread down through her lower back.

"Stephen, where's Daryl?" It's happening ...now." Danni eased herself to the mattress on the floor. She was cold; this place was always so damn cold and damp from all the early spring rain they'd been having. The towels and blankets she'd gathered over the past week or so were within reach along with room temperature water in two plastic gallon containers. There wasn't much more they could have done to prepare. Except he wasn't here. Why now?

"I don't know. He went past the barricade to help Rick. He said he'd be right back." Stephen had re-secured the cell block after Daryl followed Rick out to drive the invaders from the rest of the prison. "He told me to take care of you." Stephen knew Daryl should have been back by now if everything were all right. He kept that to himself.

"Find him! I need him here. He promised me."

"I can't leave you, not like this with that firefight going on out there!"

She heard the gunshots echoing through the prison corridors for the last hour? She'd awoken to the chaos outside with only Stephen here. Daryl had gone to fight when she was asleep; Rick needed him, but so did she.

"I'm here for you. You know that." Stephen crouched down.

Her eyes said she was sorry but that he wasn't enough. He'd lost her a long time ago.

"I can't do this without him." She tried to breathe through each contraction which felt like a wave of pain that rose, peaked and fell. "We have a fucking deal!" She gasped over a sharp twinge.

He saw the desperation and fear on her face, so against his better judgment, he decided to find Daryl.

"All right, hold tight, I'll bring him back."

He kissed the top of her head, then said to her stomach, "you wait til your dad gets here."

She would have laughed if she could. He checked the rounds in his Glock and gave her a long look before heading away.

Danni just kept breathing through very intense waves of pain, coming right on top of one another. She was alone with a war outside the door. I can't do this, I can't do this, I can't do this.

Danni woke up heart pounding, gasping for air. As the beating slowed and her breathing began to regulate, she knew with absolute certainty she was pregnant. It had been 7 days since the night of the full moon, the night when she knew it happened. A pregnancy test couldn't tell her anything this early, but her body could. She felt a shift had taken place inside. Of course she'd take the test in a couple of weeks, but she knew she'd miss her period. For the next year at least.

She turned over on her side, exhausted.

The only description of having a baby she'd ever heard was from her mom: like doing the splits on a case of dynamite. Not very reassuring. Neither she nor Daryl had any role model for parenting. At least they'd know what not to do.

Daryl wasn't beside her; it felt like late morning. She'd overslept, drained from all that had happened yesterday, but somehow her fatigue went beyond that. She cuddled Squirrel, who wiggled out of her hands, too busy for love at the moment. Sophia could finally name him today. She fell back into a deep, dreamless sleep.

... ... ... ...

"What are you doing?" She asked suspiciously, sitting up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Daryl crouched and entered the tent, carrying a plate of food, obviously made by Carol that he'd brought all the way up to her. He put it by her side.

"You need to eat better."

"Oh no, you don't. You are not doing this."

"What?" He scowled and squinted at her.

"I've been taking care of myself since I was eight years old, you are not..."

"Me too. Six. Got you beat." He sat beside her. She noticed the deep circles under his eyes. He looked as exhausted as she felt.

"Have you been sleeping?" She asked.

"Six years old." He said as a way of telling her not to worry about him.

"You don't like it either. Daryl, I don't even know if I am." She lied unable to face the truth at that moment.

"You are, or you will be. You wouldn't have told me if you weren't sure." He paused and lowered his voice. "It was in your cards wasn't it? That night when you had me pick one."

"Yes." She wanted to lean over and kiss the dirt and sweat on his neck. Instead she said, "We haven't really talked about it."

"I'm still out building up the perimeters. When I get done, I figured we could go on a run into town. I asked Glenn where the drugstore is. If you need to get anything, you can do it yourself, don't need anybody up in your business."

He didn't want to talk yet.

"What would I need?"

He got flustered. "Hell would I know?"

Then he was gone.

He didn't seem upset. The problem was that he didn't seem anything at all. Meanwhile, she felt a twisting in her gut and the need to talk it all out so she wouldn't feel so overwhelmed.

After he had left, she took a bite of the eggs he'd brought. She had just enough time to crawl out of the tent before she vomited. Dry heaves came one after the other and left her eyes tearing and body trembling.

... ... . .. .. ... .. .

After her nausea had subsided, she dressed, making sure to tuck her t-shirt under her belt to cover the marks from yesterday. Danni brought Squirrel down to the main camp where Carl and Sophia were finishing up their own breakfast.

"Sophia, this little guy has been waiting to meet you." Danni placed the squirming kitten on her lap. Her face lit up and she laughed. "He's soooo cute." When she gently stroked his head he became still and looked at her with his dark golden eyes.

"What's his name?" She asked.

"I don't know. We've been waiting for you to name him."

Sophia pursed her lips becoming solemn. "Fionn." She said decisively. "Like in your stories."

"Fionn it is. He'll become a mighty hunter someday." She knew Daryl would always call him Squirrel Bait. According to legend Fionn's Mac Cumhaill's father died before he was born. Why did that come to mind?

"Could you two keep an eye on him today. I mean if you're not too busy-"

"Yes!" Both kids shouted at once.

Danni leaned down and kissed the top of the kitten's head. Then she did the same to Sophia, relieved she was here. She ruffled Carl's hair. "See ya later."

She grabbed an apple from the basket of fruit on the card table Carol had set up for food preparation. She headed to the crossroads to do some thinking. As she rounded the corner of the farm-house, Maggie called to her from the porch.

Danni approached, thinking how little she actually knew Maggie. This young woman in a floral camisole, jeans and brown cowboy boots had never spoken more than a few words to her. She knew Glenn and the girl were in a relationship from her conversations with him. She flipped her shiny chin length brown hair gracefully from her eyes and said, "Danni, Glenn mentioned something about you and Daryl going on a run. Can you pick something up for me?"

"Sure." Danni was tossing the apple in the air and catching it. When Maggie added "I can trust you right?" Danni stopped and turned all her attention to the girl. "I mean I hardly know you, but you seem, well, I have a feeling you know, you won't judge me."

Danni sat on the steps beside her.

"Can you get me a pregnancy test?"

What is this an epidemic? Danni kept her expression neutral.

"Yes, of course."

"It's probably a false alarm, I'm not really that worried, but I 'd like to be sure. I mean my periods have never been regular and Glenn and I have always used a condom."

Always. Never got too caught up in the moment, like me?

"I want to be one hundred percent sure. Can you imagine being pregnant now? With the world like it is? Stupid."

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Danni's stomach fluttered a little.

"Yeah, of course. I'll get a couple. You never know right?" Stupid.

Maggie suddenly changed the subject.

"Danni, what's he like?"

Danni looked at her, confused.

"Daryl, I mean he seems so...intense. He used to scare me, but yesterday, the way he was about finding you. It's just ...I mean to have a guy act that way over you. It's kind of like every girl's fantasy. Even strong girls like us."

Like us. Yeah, Maggie was pretty kick ass and she didn't take crap.

Danni nodded. "I guess. Glenn looks at you the same way."

"I know he wants me safe, sure, but Daryl just..."

Was she trying to have girl talk. Be friends? It had been a long time since Danni had done this.

She had never really thought about her relationship with Daryl from the outside before. Maggie's tone sparked pride in Danni; he was her guy. Every girl's fantasy? She wasn't so sure about that, but...

"Is he always so quiet?"

Glenn interrupted. "Hey, guys. The fences on the far side of the pasture have all been reinforced. I'm heading to the ones behind the barn. Maggie do you want to give me a hand?" The way they smiled at each other told Danni they weren't going to fix fences.

"Oh, I forgot." Maggie added, standing. "You know you can come use our shower anytime. Lori and Carol always do, I never see you here, so just want you to know."

"Is it free now?"

"Yeah, go on. I'll find you later, when y'all get back okay? We should talk more don't you think?" She winked.

"Yeah." Danni said watching them walk to the barn. She stayed on the steps for another minute.

Being pregnant now is stupid. Maggie's words burned in her chest.

Maybe she couldn't do this after all? Perhaps she shouldn't do it. During all the weeks of dreaming, she'd never considered not having it. Was she ignoring what the world had become? Maybe she'd been hiding from the uncertainty of what society would be; if it would even exist at all in nine months? She felt desolate loneliness and panic lingering from the dream. He wasn't there. Am I naïve, foolish? For the first time, she contemplated Pennyroyal, the herb that in an infusion could end an early pregnancy. Light purple flowers native to Georgia and Florida was at her fingertips; she could probably walk right to the tree line and find some now. You're always running away. If you stay you might want it, you might need it. You might get hurt. Always running and in the end you lose everybody. She wasn't supposed to run away from this. She felt exhaustion nagging and a slight wave of nausea passed through her again.

.. ... .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .

The shower was just what she needed. Water flowed over her and she imagined it washing away fear and doubt. She looked at the scar forming above her hip bone and red marks on her abdomen that were taking a while to fade. As the warm water cascaded down her shoulders, breasts and hips she wondered what her body could handle. Just how much it could take. She let everything fall away from her and spiral down the drain.

... ... .. . .. .. .. .

Danni's mind felt as refreshed as her body when she wandered down the driveway to the crossroads. With clean hair, clean clothes and the late morning sun clarifying the world around her, she focused on what she could do and not on everything that was out of her control. Just as the Wheel of Fortune had told her back on the highway, that very first day she did the Tarot deck dip.

When you have been pushed in a new direction, know that every path leads somewhere, even if you do not know where it is. Such events are simply out of your control, and if you can accept that then the ride gets a lot easier. If you struggle against the Wheel, it will crush you. Go with the flow. She still hated the phrase, but the card's indications made complete sense to her now.

She dug until she found the rock and the paper. She released Bendida and thanked her for returning Sophia. Next, she sat in the center of the intersecting dirt paths holding some yarrow flowers and the apple. The cards had told her of her fate, now she needed to check in with the spirits so her intuition could lead her forward. What did she want? Bravery.

She called on the Celtic goddess Brigid, the fire deity, midwife and protector of women and children. She was also the goddess of divination, occult knowledge, poetry and prophecy. It was her Nana's namesake as well as Danni's own middle name. Protect me and make me brave. Protect us and give us strength. She put her hand on her belly. Danni was a fire sign, Daryl was a fire sign and the baby, being born in nine months, will be an Aries, also a fire sign. Brigid takes special care of fire.

The apple spell for a safe pregnancy and a healthy baby had been known in her family forever. She helped Brigid preside over it a few times with members of her Traveller family. She never expected to do it for herself. With her knife, she cut the apple in two. She lifted her shirt and took one-half and rubbed it gently over her flat tummy knowing it wouldn't stay this way much longer. She envisioned sickness being drawn out of her womb, out of her child, and into the fruit. When she finished visualizing, she took the tainted half of the apple and buried it in the ground on the side of the road behind the yarrow plants. If a tree grows from the seeds left in the buried apple, the child will be very strongly linked to the element of Earth and will never know hunger. She ate the other half of the apple as she walked back to her tent. She waited to feel brave.

"The hell, you been? Looking for you everywhere." Daryl sounded agitated.

"Don't do this." She said.

"What?"

"Don't feed me and don't be my watchdog. I don't need that. That's not who we are."

"Who we weren't maybe. I'm not letting anything happen to you again."

"You know this is complete Leo to Sagittarius behavior?"

"Then you should like it."

She stood, her hands on her hips thumbs hooked under her thick leather belt, shaking her head. "I'm serious. Don't suffocate me."

He noticed she'd washed her hair. It was flowing over her shoulders gleaming in the sun, so black it almost looked blue.

"Are we goin' on that run or what?"

... ... ... .. .. .. .. .. .. .

She extended her right leg over the Triumph's seat and then slid gently on behind Daryl putting her arms around his hips and her boots on the footpegs. When he kickstarted the thundering engine, she centered herself over the motorcycle, her body in line with his, looking over his inside shoulder to keep her weight balanced when they turned. They melded together on the bike as one rider, comfortable and serene, leaning through each turn of the chopper. Still, she couldn't forget that wedged together on one bike, he held all the power of maneuvering the machine and she literally put her life in his hands. With anyone else she'd be uncomfortable; she'd want to be the rider, not the passenger. She'd never trusted anyone this much before.

Sometimes situations seemed so normal she could almost forget about what was happening. Riding behind him, the wind whipped her hair and the sun warmed her face and shoulders. With no Walkers in sight, it could have been a regular bike ride on an ordinary day before any of the chaos had started. But she wouldn't have done this with him. The only reason they were together was because of the Walker disaster. There is no way she'd ever have met him before any of this.

They pulled onto the small town's main street. What had once been picturesque structures lined the road: a diner, general store, bank, pharmacy, movie theater and tavern. The buildings hadn't changed in forty years. The red, white and blue RC Cola signs and the pink one that had 'Glamour Beauty Salon' written in black script hanging above the storefronts caught her attention. They were probably from the 1960's. Daryl pulled up and parked next to the small grassy park in the town square between the commercial buildings along Main Street and the school and library. A white gazebo took the focus in the center of the green space.

Daryl, loaded an arrow and shouldered his crossbow instinctively as they walked to the pharmacy across the deserted square. Danni knew she should have some sort of list, but her distracted mind only remembered the pregnancy tests. The store had naturally been looted a few times. She dodged overturned shelves and debris on the floor to find the feminine product aisle and put the last 4 tests from the shelf into her surplus backpack. She walked a little further and turning the corner saw the diapers. She stood and stared until Daryl took her elbow and steered her forward.

"What else?" He asked scanning for Walkers.

"Honestly, I don't even know. Vitamins I guess."

She found the last couple of bottles of prenatal vitamins. She shoved them both into her bag.

"I need to go to the library across the way."

She had noticed it when they'd first arrived. She was hoping to find herbal reference books. He followed her across the street, listening and scanning for any sign of trouble. So far everything had been too calm; that they hadn't come across a single shuffling corpse yet surprised him. He kicked open the double wooden doors, clearing the lobby as a they entered. Despite the stale, musty air in the closed up building she still smelled the distinctive odor of old books: grassy notes mixed with a tang of acids and a hint of vanilla over an underlying mustiness. Paper, ink, glue, fibers all aging together affected by light, heat, moisture, and even each other over the years, joined to create one of her favorite scents. He first job had been at a second-hand bookstore when she was fourteen and the smell brought her back there even now. She flipped quickly through the card catalog. Thank goodness this place hadn't caught up with the computer revolution. She located the Cunningham reference books that Brigid owned on the second floor.

"This will be fast" she commented. As he followed her up the creaking wooden stairs his restless, ramped up energy was palpable. She wished she could spend hours here and take a dozen books back.

"We gotta run into some geeks sooner or later." He stalked ahead of her, checking in between the stacks. "All clear up here though."

After finding two of the three books, she turned to Daryl. "All set, let's..." she stopped, reading his eyes. She knew what he wanted and she wanted it too. He walked toward her, his body trapping hers against the wall between the aisles. She dropped the books. "You like it like this don't you?" She asked her stomach twisting with desire and anticipation. He dropped his head and kissed her shoulder lightly as he reached to unbuckle her belt. He buried his face in her hair, smelling the fresh honeysuckle. She kicked her boots off and pushed her jeans down stepping out of them, giving him access.

Raising her arms above her head, he pressed his hips against her and she could feel the growing hardness at the front of his pants.

A little moan escaped from his throat and he held her wrists against the wall above her head, using only his hips to pin her. One of his knees slid between hers and forced them apart. She struggled to keep her balance as she moved her legs wider to accommodate his other knee.

She raised one leg at a time, wrapping them around his waist and she lifted her chin slightly as he shifted his head for a better angle on her neck. She lowered her eyes to where his hand rested on the waistband of his pants. Heat flooded her skin as he slowly pulled down on the zipper, each tooth on the metal popped like gunshots echoing in her ears. It seemed like forever before the zipper finally made its way to the seam in his pants. Her desperate hunger to have him inside of her was clear in her eyes. As a sly smile spread across his face, she whispered, "Why are you so mean to me?"

He pushed forward, releasing his hand from her waist and once again he used his hips to pin her to the wall. Flesh touched flesh and she started slightly at the heat erupting between her legs. He roughly pressed his mouth over hers and she felt as if he were eating her alive, consumed by a wild, untamable beast. The lion. She closed her eyes and felt the world tilt; she struggled to keep her bearings but gave up as once again she was too lost to care.

He shifted his hips down and back slightly and heard her whimper as he pressed himself against her. He slid inside of her with little resistance and cupped his hands under the backs of her upper thighs. He shifted them slightly higher before burying himself inside of her completely.

A loud, intense roaring assaulted her ears as he filled her. She lowered her arms down from above her head and slid them over his roughly cut cotton shoulders stopping on his lower back. She grasped the fabric and pulled it slowly from the waistband of his pants. He shivered slightly as her fingers brushed across his bare skin and his hips thrust forward causing her to gasp.

Her nails scraped across his back, over his scars urging violence. She needed what Maggie had talked about earlier, what his eyes promised when anyone hurt her. She needed it now.

He shifted slightly and withdrew, dropping his head next to hers. She cried as his teeth sank into her shoulder and thrust forward at the same time.

Within seconds, her lower back was beating painfully against the brick wall behind her. His teeth grazed up her neck and he shifted her legs higher again, going deeper. The overpowering need devoured them both. She had her own raging beast inside, fighting and tearing for release.

Her vision exploded into a thousand lights, then plunged into pitch blackness as every muscle in her body contracted painfully at once. Muscles deep inside of her, that she never knew existed, clenched tightly around him and she heard him groan and sigh in her ear.

The world shattered.

Her body went rigid as the climax ignited deep inside, a torrent of shock waves overrunning her system so powerfully that she could barely breathe. She was just dimly aware of his continuing movements.

She felt like she couldn't take anymore, but her body refused to listen and her fingernails dug deeper into the scarred skin on his back, demanding, pushing him to continue. He raised his head and she could see his eyes were darker, his control slipping. She moved one of her hands from his back to grab his hair and pulled his face roughly towards hers.

Their mouths and tongues met and he slammed her against the wall, his hand sliding from her thigh to slap against the wall for support. The firm, pulsating flesh against flesh caused her body to defy her brain again and she crashed over the edge once more. He broke the kiss and buried his head back into her shoulder and thrust up for the last time.

A loud pounding in her ears brought her back to herself. She realized that it was her heart hammering against her chest. Swallowing slowly, she struggled to regain her breath. Her entire body tingled as the feeling of the multiple orgasms faded.

He dropped his other hand from her thigh and pressed it against the wall, using it to lever himself slowly away and withdraw as she dropped her legs back to the floor and pulled her jeans on.

She had just come more than she ever had before. She tugged slightly on her bottom lip with her teeth as she watched him fasten his pants. He read her thoughts clearly and raised an eyebrow. His arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her closer and his lips lightly grazed over her ear as he spoke "You make me feel like a man when I do that to you."

Her knees weakened when she saw the hunger still in his eyes.

They walked side by side down the empty main street, broken window shopping. He carried the two books she'd taken from the library in one hand, his crossbow in the other as if they were on a surreal, twisted date.

She'd never have met him in her old life; never have looked twice at him and she felt sure he wouldn't have looked at her either.

She wanted to hold his hand, but they never did that.

"I am pregnant."

"Did you take that test?"

"It's too early. I just know I am."

He nodded, trusting her intuition. He looked worried. "Did we... what we just did, that hurt it or anything?"

"No." His concern touched her. She took his wrist then. He let her.

They crossed the empty street to the town square.

There were no Walkers in the vicinity. They sat under a tree.

The sun's warmth was temperate not sweltering for a change, the grass as soft and fresh as a carpet. She lay on her back stretched out looking at the fair weather clouds above them in the blue sky. Her body felt happily spent, her mind finally at ease after telling him.

"We don't really know each other." She noted.

"Know enough." He leaned back against the thick knotted tree trunk.

"You don't even know my last name."

"Doesn't matter."

"Its Doherty. My full name is Danielle Brigid Doherty."

"Okay." He smiled. It always surprised her when he did; his face opened up.

"If we carved our initials into this tree they'd all be Ds." She observed.

She thought about the strangest things, he said to himself.

He pulled his knife from its holster and turned to the area of bark behind his shoulder.

He started on the first D.

She sat up, not believing it. "Thought you weren't a bitch. You gonna carve a heart around it and everything?" She teased.

He shrugged, then nodded. "Yeah I am, you gotta have a heart on these things. You best keep it to yourself though." He warned.

He continued to focus, working hard at carving each letter carefully and permanently.

"I want to know stuff about you." She announced.

"Like what?"

"What's your favorite color? What's your favorite song? Favorite food? Do you have a favorite book? That kind of stuff."

"Twenty questions, huh?" He was still focused on his carving.

She nodded. "If you could have one superpower what would it be?"

"Huh?" She was hard to follow sometimes.

"I'd be invisible." She went on. "Be able to make myself invisible when I chose."

He had wanted to do that as a kid. "I get that. Would have come in handy."

"Coke or Pepsi?" She ended her interrogation.

He was quiet, intently focused on starting the heart around the initials, then said "Catcher in the Rye."

"What?"

"My favorite book. Think I can't read?"

"You can read? I thought you lived under a rock your whole life."

"Read it in school." Even telling her this felt good. He couldn't have told Merle he'd read a book and actually liked it. Merle would have ridiculed him and kicked his ass.

She knew that book. It was all there; identity, belonging, connection, and alienation.

What Danni remembered most about the story is Holden Caulfield's fantasy. After misreading the poem, 'The Catcher in the Rye', he pictures himself as the sole guardian of a group of children running and playing in a huge rye field on the edge of a cliff. His job is to catch the children if, in their abandon, they come close to falling off the brink, to be a "catcher in the rye." Because of this misinterpretation, Holden believes that to be a "catcher in the rye" means to save children from losing their innocence.

"What do you miss about life before all this Walker shit?" She asked.

He considered the question. Currently, he had a girl and a baby on the way which meant a real family for the first time in his life. He had a job to keep them alive and to help the group do the same. He was good at it; his skills mattered now. He didn't even miss Merle, all that much. He liked being out from under his brother's shadow. It felt good to make up his own mind. As unlikely as it seemed he felt grounded for the first time in his life. "Nothing."

She nodded. "Did you ever think about having kids before, back in the real world?"

"Drop another sucker into that mess? Nah."

"Me either." She twirled her hair around her finger nervously. "Can we do this?"

His sandpaper voice became dusky, docile and slightly affectionate. He rarely spoke like this, even to her, but only to her. He continued to look at his handiwork on the tree while he said, "I never found anyone I wanted to be with the way I want to be with you. That should count for something. I'm not going anywhere."

He'd finished carving their initials inside a heart. He wiped down the knife's blade with the red rag from his back pocket.

"Is that a yes?" She asked, almost wanting to cry at his gesture studying the DD +DD thinking of how innocent it seemed.

He shrugged. "There's nowhere to run anymore. The world is different now." He turned to her. His eyes pierced hers more determined than she'd ever seen. "There's too much dying. We need something to care about."

He needed something to care about. Danni's love was slowly reprogramming him. Life had gotten larger somehow. Having a kid might be crazy but it might make living that much better. He found he liked being needed. Besides, he'd do it right, not like his old man. He'd be there and no one would ever lay a hand on his child.

That was his yes.