By the time Carol had dropped him off at home, Daryl's mom had already left for work. If he hurried, he would have time to go by the diner and talk to her before class. He took a quick shower and got dressed. He was on his way out the door when Merle came out his room, still half asleep.

"Well, there you are. About time, you showed up. You had mom real worried, you know?" Merle leaned against the wall and crossed his arms.

"I know that. I'm going to talk to her before school. I just needed to think." Daryl grabbed his keys and backpack.

"Good. See that you do."

"I'm going to. Get off my ass."

"Fine." Merle was quite for a moment before he spoke again. "So, what did you and Carol do last night? I know that's where you ended up."

"You been talking to Andrea?"

"Maybe," he shrugged.

"Well, nothing happened. We just went to sleep."

Merle frowned at him. "So, you was in her bed and nothing happened?" He shook his head. "I thought I taught you better than that."

"Damn it, Merle. We wasn't going to do something with her whole family right there in the house. Her daughter was right in the next room."

"Relax, I was just fucking with you. Don't get your panties in wad."

"Whatever, I gotta go." He started out the door. "Oh, yeah. Carol's uncle said to tell you, to come by the garage if you wanted some work while you were home.

"Sure, I'll do that."

"See you later."

When Daryl got to the diner he found his mom sitting in one of the booths going over the receipts. She smiled when she saw him.

"Hey, mom."

She pushed aside what she was working on. "Hi, sweetheart. Did you have anything to eat? Let me get you a plate." She moved to get up.

"Nah, I ate at Carol's."

She raised her eyebrows at him. "I hope Dale wasn't too upset."

He shook his head. "No, he was alright. Look, I'm sorry about walking out like that last night. I shouldn't have done that."

"It's okay, I know you were upset. I should've told you about what was going on sooner. I didn't want you to have to see him."

"I get it. You pissed at me for leaving last night?"

"No." she leaned forward kissed him on top of the head. "I was worried."

He hung his head. "I'm sorry."

She shook her head. "It's fine. I need you to meet me at the courthouse after school."

"What for?"

"I'm going down there to file a restraining order. You need to be there so you can file one of you own. Sheriff Grimes is going to meet us down there."

"You really think a piece of paper is going to keep him away?"

"Probably not. But if he violates it he'll go right back to jail."

"Good. That's where he belongs."

"You'd better get going before you're late."

He looked at the clock on the wall. "Too late for that."

She picked up an order pad, tore off a sheet and wrote on the back. "Here. Now get going."

"I don't think this a good idea." A woman with short dark said from where she sat on the bed of a hotel room. "What about the restraining order?"

"I don't recall asking you what the hell you think." The man lit a cigarette and glanced out the window. "And to hell with the restraining order, you think I care what some little piece of paper says."

"I just think that there might be a better way to go about this." She flinched when he stalked towards her and grabbed her arm, jerking her up.

"Ahh!" She tried to pull her arm away but his grip only tightened. He raised his hand and slapped her across the face. She would have fallen if his grip hadn't been so tight.

He pointed a finger her face. "Now, you listen to me. You are going to shut up and do as you are told. They owe me and they are going to pay. Now do you remember your part?" he asked, releasing her arm.

"Yeah, I remember." She wiped the blood from her lip.

"Good. Clean yourself up. We have some things to take care of first."

"So, what do want to ride now?" asked Daryl, reaching down to pick up Sophia, who was tugging on the end of his shirt. They had already ridden some of the kid-friendly rides. He kind of wished they'd come with somebody else, who could watch Sophia, so he could ride the roller coaster with Carol. The last time they rode it had been before she got pregnant with Sophia and she had kept a death grip on his arm the entire time.

Carol glanced around the crowded fair. "Umm…how about the bumper cars? The line's pretty short." She pointed in the direction of the bumper cars.

"I don't know. Last time you got pretty aggressive." They had come here a couple of years ago and Carol had rammed the other cars so hard that the people had actually complained to the man in charge of the ride and she had gotten kicked off the ride.

She rolled her eyes. "I was not aggressive. Those people were just wimps."

Daryl chuckled. "Alright." He took her hand. "Come on. Hopefully no one will recognize you."

"That's not nice. I'm not that bad, am I?"

"Well, let's say I'm glad you don't do that when you're driving a real car."

"I'm going to get you for that."

"Looking forward to it." He wrapped is free arm around her and pulled her into his side. "Hey, Sophia?"

She turned her head to look at him. "What do you say me and you team against your mama?"

"Yeah," she said, clapping her hands together.

Carol wasn't certain if Sophia knew what she was agreeing to but she seemed happy so it didn't matter.

A few minutes later they made it to the front of the line.

"Okay, Sophia. Which car do you want?"

She looked around and pointed to the only pink car. Daryl groaned – she would pick out the only pink car there was. Oh well, who cares? He wasn't going to tell her no.

After getting her buckled in, Daryl explained what they were going to do.

"I'm going to need you to help me steer? Can you do that?"

She nodded enthusiastically. "Mama?" she asked, looking around.

"She's right over there in that purple car. See?"

Sophia stretched up so she could see better.

"Now, what we're going to do is, we are going to try and bump your mama's car with ours. And if she comes after us we have to move away as fast as we can."

"Okay." She placed her hands on the wheel and Daryl put his over top of her to help her steer.

"Alright, here we go," he said.

"I can't believe they kicked us off the ride." Carol huffed as the adjusted Sophia, who was riding piggy back, arms wrapped wrapped so tightly around Carol's neck that she was having trouble breathing.

"Technically, only you got kicked off. We just went with you."

"Whatever." She rolled eyes. It was fun while it lasted. She could tell Sophia had a lot of fun helping Daryl drive the little car.

Daryl leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the lips. "Come on, don't be mad."

Sophia giggled and buried her face in Carol's hair when she saw Daryl kiss her mommy. That had been happening a lot. Was Daryl going to be her Daddy now? Lots of kids in her class had daddies and she wanted one too.

"You think that's funny." Daryl leaned forward and tickled her belly, giving her a kiss on the cheek and causing her to giggle even more.

"Come on," he said, taking Carol's hand. "Let's go find something to ride where you can't hurt nobody."

"Fine." She tried to sound mad but she smiled and followed after him.

"Do y'all want a snow cone?" he asked while they were standing in line for the carousel.

"Oh, yeah. I would love one."

"What flavor do y'all want?"

"Purple," said Carol.

"Pink," said Sophia with her face buried in Carol's hair.

Daryl opened his mouth to point out that those were colors, not flavors. But then he shook is head. It didn't matter.

When he turned around he bumped into Rick and Michonne who had just gotten in line behind him.

"Hey," Carol greeted them. "I didn't know you guys were coming."

Michonne shrugged. "I hadn't been in a while and when I told Rick he thought it sounded like fun."

"I'm glad you came. It'll be even more fun now."

"Hey, guys," said Daryl. "She got kicked off the bumper cars."

"Again?" said Rick laughing at her.

"Michonne covered her mouth to suppress the giggles.

"Are you guys ever going to let that go?" Carol squatted down to put Sophia down. She was getting way to heavy. She took a hold of Sophia's hand as soon she was on the ground.

"Nope, it's too much fun to tease you about it." Michonne wrapped her in a half hug.

"You are mean, mean people," said Carol, turning around to face away from them.

Daryl leaned towards her and kissed her on the cheek. "I'll be right back." He saw the corner of her mouth quirk up so he knew she wasn't really mad, she was just giving him a hard time.

"Rick, come with me. I'm getting snow cones."

"Get me a red one," called Michonne as they were walking away.

"Hey, how's it going?" asked Rick as they got into the line for the snow cones.

"Pretty good. Sophia's having fun."

"That's good. But I meant with your dad being out."

Daryl narrowed his eyes at him. "It's fine. Ain't heard nothing from him. Filed a restraining order on him the other day."

Rick nodded his head. "I know, my granddad told me. He served it to him yesterday." Rick's grandfather had been the county Sherriff for the past twenty years and he was up for re-election next month.

Daryl was quiet for a moment. "Did he say anything?"

"My granddad?"

"No. Caleb." He refused to call him dad. He didn't deserve that title.

"No, not really. Granddad said he was pissed. Cussed him and slammed the door in his face."

Daryl nodded. That's about what he expected. As long he stayed away from his mom. He could snort and stomp all he wanted.

"Come on, it's our turn," said Rick, tilting his head towards the window.

"So, what really happened with you guys when Daryl spent the night?" asked Michonne. They had gotten out of line for the carousal, deciding to wait on the guys to come back so they could all ride together.

"I already told you. We talked and then we went to sleep. But—"

"But what?" asked Michonne, leaning closer they could talk without Sophia hearing something she shouldn't.

"When I woke up, I was practically on top of him."

Michonne smiled. "That sounds nice."

"Yeah, it was. I don't know if I'm ready for anything else. I got pregnant with Sophia the first time I had sex. And that was really unpleasant." She glanced at Sophia to make sure she wasn't paying attention the conversation. But she was too busy playing with the doll that Daryl had won for her throwing darts at balloons. "I don't want to have two babies before I graduate high school."

"Well, that's because you were with a pig before. It wouldn't be like that with Daryl. He cares about you."

"I know. I guess I'm just nervous."

"Well, just take your time. You'll know when you're ready. And in the meantime you can go on the pill."

Carol nodded. "That's a good idea." She'd actually been thinking about it since she and Daryl had gotten together. It wouldn't hurt to be prepared.

"What's taking them so long?" said Michonne. "I want my snow cone."

Carol opened her mouth to respond but someone slammed into her knocking her off balance. And causing her to lose her grip on Sophia's hand."Hey," yelled Carol. "Watch it." But the guy that had bumped into her had already walked off.

"Why don't you watch where you're going? Idiot!" yelled Michonne. "Are you okay?"

"Fine." She glanced down. "Sophia, are you-"

Sophia wasn't there.

"Sophia," yelled Carol, looking around.

Michonne looked around. "Where did she go? Sophia," yelled Michonne.

Carol shook her head. This wasn't happening. "She was right there."

"Sophia! Where are you?" She ran around the corner of the carousel, but didn't see her anywhere. Her chest felt tight. Everything seemed to be moving too fast and too slow at the same time.

Michonne grabbed her arm. "She couldn't have gotten far. You go that way." She pointed to right. I'm going to go that way and grab the guys and we'll go to security." She gave Carol a shove to get her going.

Carol ran through the crowd of people shouting Sophia's name.

"Sophia!"