A/N: You lovely readers and reviewers. Thanks so much for your enthusiasm and your faith that I'll do right by these characters. This story's been a different experience than my other Caryl fics, and I am really enjoying it. So glad you are too! ~ CeeCee

It is hours later, after they've extinguished the dull, idiot life from hundreds of walkers, and the stench and black smoke of the resulting bonfire still hovers in the thick late-summer air over the prison. They are all filthy and exhausted, but as Daryl looks around at the group, trying to ignore the dull throb in his weary shoulders, he realized they look satisfied, too. A job well done, he thinks. He wonders again, as he has all day, how Carol's far more delicate job is going.

After she and Beth's hasty retreat to the laboring Marie and Hershel, Carl brought his sister inside, returning with a promise that someone from the prison would let them know as soon as there was an answer about the baby – and the mother. They are all still waiting.

"It's no good," Glenn says quietly, "Marie wasn't due until the end of September, she said. Maggie was talking to her a bit last week." Daryl leans silently against the prison wall, watches a shadow cross his friend's face. "A baby, six weeks early, back in the day? At a hospital, with those little ovens they put 'em in and everything? It would have a chance. Here? It's like a really bad joke…" Glenn trails off, shakes his head.

"You don't know, man," Tyreese speaks up. "You never know. I've seen a lot – a LOT – of shit go down in the past year, good and bad, that doesn't make sense or defies what you'd normally call logic. Until we hear otherwise, there's always a chance for that baby."

Daryl finds himself silently agreeing with him. Like Merle, he thinks. Merle wasn't no miracle baby, but who would have thought? He clears his throat, shakes his head before the tears can betray him.

"Tyreese is right," Rick says quietly. "Judith is proof." He pauses, looks over at Glenn, before he can speak. "Yeah, Judith is proof, even though Lori's not." He looks up, as they all do, hearing hurried footsteps at the doorway. Maggie appears. She looks worn, but she's got a smile on her face.

"They're okay," she breathes. "Marie and the baby, they're okay." Glenn jumps up, and Maggie sags into him, shaking, swiping tears from her cheeks. "He's the smallest thing I've ever seen, but he's hollerin' away up there." She laughs through her tears.

"Thank god," Sasha pipes up. "So it's a boy?" She's grinning up at Maggie from her spot on the ground.

"Yeah. Real little guy with tons of dark hair. Marie is calling him David, after his father," Maggie's pale face is clearing. "It was unbelievable, what Daddy and Carol did. They were just…tireless. Relentless. I don't think either of them left Marie all day, just easing the baby around, talkin' Marie through the labor, the pain, the blood…" She trails off, her face worried. She looks at Rick. "They did what I couldn't."

Rick walks over, takes her hand. "I don't ever want to hear you talk like that again, Maggie," he says quietly. "You saved my daughter. You did your best by Lori. She knew, and she made the sacrifice for Judith. Judith is here because of you and her brother." Rick's eyes are shining with tears, and Daryl looks away, wondering why they're all so willing to blame themselves for the dead.

oooOOOooo

He walks up to her cell, a plate of food in each hand. He brings her what he can.

She's just sitting on her bunk, staring into space. She's changed into a fresh shirt, but he can still see the red-brown stains on her small, strong fingers and forearms.

"Hey," he greets her. "Thought you might be hungry." He hands her a plate.

"Hey," she smiles up at him, taking it. "Thanks. I walked right through the kitchen, didn't even think to grab something." She somewhat gracelessly starts shoveling her meal in. "I have no idea what this is, but it's fabulous."

"So, another rug rat," he grumbles. He can here David's distant, thin wails a few rooms away. Maggie's right, the kid's got a set of lungs on him.

"He's a born warrior, I think, that one," she shakes her head, wipes her hand across her mouth, looks back up at him, hovering in the doorway. "Sit." She scoots over, making room.

He complies, and they finish the rest of their simple meal in silence. He doesn't understand why, but sitting here with her, in this grimy cell, their legs touching and their breathing aligned, is so much. So much more than he could have expected for himself. Maybe that's why more than this terrifies him.

Two little girls appear in the doorway. One is the kid with the black braids from Carol's knife class.

"Ellie! Sarah! Hi ladies," she passes her plates over to him, rises. He can feel her exhaustion. He also knows she'd never turn a child away. "What can we do for you?"

"Hi Carol," Sarah's got two missing front teeth and short blond hair. "Ellie want to ask you something." The kid pokes the other one. "Go on, ask her."

Ellie gazes up at Carol. The kid looks like she's about to bust out crying. "Carol? Did you – did you stop teaching the knife class because I was no good? Because I wouldn't learn it right?" And now the tears come, rolling down the little, crumpled face.

Carol immediately kneels down, pulls the sobbing girl close. "Oh, honey, no. Not at all. There was no class today because Marie's baby, David, was born, and I was helping Hershel out. Being born is hard work, and David was a little early. He needed some extra help." She holds the little girl until her sobs taper off to hiccups.

"So…you'll still teach us?" Ellie's splotchy face is starting to look less worried.

"Of course I will," Carol soothes. "It might be a few days, until we know for sure that Marie and baby David are doin' alright, but then we'll be back to learning. Okay?" Both kids nod solemnly. "Now, why don't you guys go to the kitchen and see if there are any extra cookies?"

"Kids," Carol shakes her head, sits back down next to him. "You gotta admire their weird logic."

"She thought it was her fault," he muses.

"Yeah," Carol shakes her head leans back against the wall. He follows suit. "It's that combination of a child's ego – they're still figuring out that the world does not begin and end with them – insecurity and interpretation of the facts. They come up with some real doozies about the world."

He nods, thinking of the blame he's shouldered in the name of his mother, Merle. How much of it was just reading the facts poorly? He's pulled from his thoughts by a warm weight on his shoulder. Her forehead. She's fallen asleep.

He eases her down, sets her head on the flat pillow at the head of the bunk. He gently places the sheet over her rising and falling ribcage. He wants to brush his hand over her greying curls, but he's not brave enough. Not nearly.

He silently takes the plates from the small bunkside table, stands in the doorway. Watches her for a moment. Considers. Takes the wrapped bar of luxury soap from his pocket, places it on the table. The flowered paper it's wrapped in is soiled and worn at the corners, but the sweet, sharp fragrance of the soap fills the tiny cell.

It is an imperfect gift, but it's what he has to offer.