For notes and disclaimer, please see part one. This one especially is for you, Sis, written on 3/23. Love you.

Previously, on the Walking Dead: When Sophia runs into the woods in Carol's dream, Daryl's voice brings her back to reality.

Laughter is the Best Medicine

Sophia balanced precariously on one foot atop the rocky bank across the water. She giggled at the shocked look on her mother's face.

"Don't you go scarin' me like that," Carol drawled, placing a hand over her heaving chest.

"Isn't it pretty, Mom? What'd you call those in the stories you used to tell? Babbling brooks?"

She nodded, deciding that the bubbling sound of the flowing creek did seem to fit the bill.

"And you wanted to stay in the field." The little girl giggled. "Can't stay in the field forever."

"Is this what you wanted to show me?" Carol asked. Once she felt calmer, better, she angled her way across the water, going from exposed stone to exposed stone, to reach her daughter.

"Well, part of it," she said with a bob of her blonde head.

"I just wish you wouldn't go running off like that. Your mom's ol' nerves are frazzled enough."

"What's the worst that could happen?"

An image of a small plot encircled with field stones came to mind. "That's not a question to ask, Sophia, believe me."

Her little shoulders reached her ears before her back curved and she seemingly deflated. "The world is so big and so pretty and so full of... of... stuff, isn't that what we're supposed to do? Go looking, go having fun? Being fruitful and adding?"

Carol laughed. It wasn't a forced sound, nothing that came from relief after a particularly frightening event. It was honest and real, it warmed her very core, radiating out to her extremities. "At least you were paying some kind of attention in Sunday School."

Sophia frowned. "Well, dividing doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Do you subtract? I mean, if there's fruit enough to eat for everyone, then that's... well, that would be subtracting from the trees..."

When he heard laughter, he wondered if he was losing his mind. The world lost all its mirth, all its humor the second the first walkers shuffled forward. His eyes roved the camp, scouting over the Greenes, the Grimeses, before landing on who it had to be.

He soundlessly crossed the camp toward her, before hissing quietly to try to get her attention. "Hey. Hush up, would'ja?"

She was holding her stomach when her eyes opened, still chuckling. "D-Daryl?" she asked, between softened peals.

"Gonna wake the rest of 'em," he whispered.

She quieted, realizing that it was just before dawn yet again. She eased out of her makeshift bed and looked up at him. She was surprised at the concern in his eyes, the way his head was tilted slightly, questioningly. With a shrug, she picked up the blanket and, instead of putting it immediately in the bike's saddle bag, she wrapped herself up with it, walking with him back to his post. "You seen anything?"

He shook his head. Being as they were out in the open, essentially, just off the road, he wasn't entirely sure that was a good thing. He appreciated not finding other groups, particularly if the closest ones were Randall's ilk, but he'd much rather see the occasional lone walker, or maybe one in a small group than none at all. It reminded him too much of the farm and when the herd seemed to materialize out of thin air.

She sat at his feet, wrapping her arms (and the blanket) around her knees, which were drawn to her chest. "That's good, right?"

He gave a shrug. "Depends on how you look, I guess." He glanced down at her. "You musta slept pretty good..."

The smile, unbidden, grew on her face again, until her cheeks hurt. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd had that sensation. "Out of the mouths of babes sometimes," she said quietly. "It really... I really feel like I'm talking with her, that we're having real conversations, like if we hadn't gotten separated when we did, if we were together now... this is what she'd say, this is how she'd act." She shook her head, realizing he probably didn't want to hear. "And here I am, just goin' on and on about it."

"It's like having a good memory, right?" he asked.

She nodded.

He drew in a slow breath. "Take the good where you can. Ain't any of that left anymore."

But, he was wrong. It hadn't died with the walkers; it just became harder to find. "Even birds sing after the rain, Daryl. Good isn't gone. It's just hidden. Some places, it's hiding better than others."

Stay tuned...