AN: last chapter. Super fluffy !

I do not own or profit from The Walking Dead

Chapter 23

3 years later

"We could have a plantation, a Border Poo plantation!"

Daryl rolled hi eyes Carol as snuggled Ruby's two puppies to her chest. Ruby had her head on Carol's lap staring up at him with a look that he had a hard time saying no too. It wasn't fair. The two of them always ganged up on him.

"This ain't 101 Dalmatians and I ain't owing a dog called a Border Poo." Daryl pouted rolling his eyes as Carol picked up a a puppy holding it in front of her face moving the paws and talking in a high pitched voice "Please Uncle Daryl, don't take us away from our mommy and Daddy."

"We ain't keeping him either!" He grumped as the French poodle Carol had named Butch went over and put his head on Daryl's lap.

"Sure, sure." Carol said grinning.

"I just haven't found a good home yet for him, and he needed to give her moral support." He poured reluctantly scratching the head of the poodle that had weaselled his way into his heart.

He'd tried to take Ruby to be spayed, he really had. But when he'd seen how scared Ruby was to go into the vet hospital, he couldn't do it to her. Not after everything she'd been through. Not after she saved Carol's life.

So life had gone on. He worked helping Tyrese and Rick with cases when he could and he and Carol grew the business together.

One day Ruby had disappeared. Carol had been distraught. She'd been gone two days and when she came back she'd had her poodle boyfriend in tow.

They'd plastered town with posters, trying to find the poodle's owner. He wasn't chipped and had no collar. Butch had taken to following Daryl like a shadow. If Ruby thought the sun rose with Carol, then Butch thought it set with Daryl. There was only one person that Ruby and Butch seemed to adore more than Carol and Daryl.

Carol had come out to the shop excitedly waving the newspaper a few days later.

"Oh my god!" She exclaimed waving the paper "look at this!"

He grabbed the paper. "Cops raid Poodle Puppy Mill, hundreds of dogs now in need of a home." He look over at Ruby asleep with the poodle that Carol had named Butch. She'd grinned saying all men needed to overcompensate somehow.

"She's a hero! She went to that Puppy Mill and saved her boyfriend!" Carol said excitedly. "We can't get rid of him now!"

That night as he lay spooned behind Carol pressing kisses to her neck and shoulder she'd murmured. "We should probably get the dogs spayed and neutered."

"Fuck" he groaned he'd totally forgotten.

In the end it had been to late. The deed had already been done. Ruby wouldn't have more puppies her pregnancy had been complicated by previous injuries. The two fur balls that toddled around would be her only offspring.

Just then a noise down the hall caught his attention. "Looks like someone's awake." Carol grinned getting up and walking down the hall.

Daryl watched with a smile as his two year old daughter toddled into the room, carefully followed by her mother behind her. She plopped herself down among the pillows on the floor, to be immediately surrounded by Butch and Ruby and their puppies.

"Traitor." He muttered to Butch with a grin. Butch and Ruby loved that little girl more than anything else. He watched as Carol sat next to her and put a puppy on her lap and the little girl carefully hugged it to her chest. His heart couldn't have been more full at that moment.

"Sophia puppie's" his daughter declared as Carol bit back a grin.

"Well I guess that's that." He grunted. He should have seen it coming.