The group tries to decide how to break the news about Carol to Daryl while she works to appease Negan and protect the other women he took from Alexandria.

I'd rather be dreaming

I'd rather be dreaming than sleeping
Just sleeping you're just as well dead
In dreams I can fly
In dreams I don't die
That's why I lie here in this bed

Just sleeping you're just as well dead
I'd rather be dreaming

Songwriter: Loudon Wainwright; lyrics © BMG RIGHTS MANAGEMENT US, LLC

"We have to tell him." Michonne said quietly, looking to the open doorway of the clinic.

Rick didn't answer her. He felt unmoored—everyone he'd started with back in Atlanta was lost to him now—dead or if alive missing, in danger or hurt. His son, his oldest friends in this fucked up new world were all gone...

"Rick!" Michonne barked more vehemently, "You don't get to do this. Not this time."

Rick blinked at her.

"She's right, Rick." Morgan said, "We need you-we need a leader now more than ever."

"When Daryl wakes up we need to be ready; have a plan in place." Sasha said adamantly. "He's not going to sit still once he knows what happened with Negan."

"How is he?" Michonne asked Aaron, who along with Eric and Sasha had been doing their best to take care of the wounded from the attack. Ron and Spencer, like Daryl, were in the infirmary beds with internal injuries and possible concussions, Ron from the beating he took trying to defend Enid and Spencer from the mortar blast the tower had taken.

"Fighting the drugs." Aaron said, frowning, "If he has a concussion it's dangerous to keep him under much longer."

"He has to know he can't just go running after her—the Savior's base is a walled fortress with over a hundred men—it'd be suicide." Jesus said.

"Have you met Daryl?" Michonne asked, raising her brows at the new man.

"I for one do not think we should underestimate Carol. She got us out of Terminus." Eugene said in his bland monotone. "All by herself."

"She wasn't eight and a half months pregnant at the time."Abe reminded them all; his worry for Rosita and the pain in his mangled arm doing nothing to lessen his innate cynicism.

"She's also not by herself this time." Olivia said vehemently. "Rosita and Tara are all part of your original group—and Erin and Enid—they...they've all been out there, they know how to survive!"

"You really think they'll be able to take Negan down from the inside?" Jesus asked, looking around the circle of people who had gathered in front of the clinic for word on Daryl.

"I would not count them out." Eugene said stubbornly, "I would not."

Olivia reached over and took his hand in hers and Eugene frowned, looking down at it, unable to process all of the feelings he was having all at once: fear for the friends that against all odds he had grown to care about, happiness at the closeness of the woman he was starting to really believe might be interested in being more than friends with him, and anger at the latest group of asshole crazy people who had tried to destroy his world.

"I'll talk to Daryl." Rick said, "Tell him how things are." and then he winced, remembering saying something very similar about Andrea back at the quarry while she waited for her sister to reanimate. He didn't suppose this conversation would go any better, but he had to try.

"You'll be pleased at the medical facilities we have back at Savior City, Erin." Negan said in a friendly and somewhat eager to please tone. "Our guy is just an ass doctor, but he's made a good start."

He'd taken Erin and Carol in his car, an actual limousine, and the three of them sat in the back with one of his guards, the man called Dwight who wielded a crossbow, smaller than the one Daryl carried, but just as deadly. He and the doctor sat facing the back where Carol and Negan sat side by side.

Carol winced to look at the bowman; one whole side of his face was covered in angry red to pink to while scar tissue, looking like a napalm burn, his eye continually watering. She wondered if he'd been in Atlanta the night it had been bombed by the military in a last ditch attempt to keep the dead from completely overrunning the city. She'd heard about the state of some of the walkers Daryl and the others had encountered before Grady.

"I don't say ass doctor because of any lack of competence," Negan said with a wide grin when he saw the frowns both women wore, "He's proctologist." and then he laughed hardily, as if the specialty in and of its self was hilarious. "Come on—you spend half you life kow-towing and kissing ass to get through how many years of higher education and med school and you decide to spend the rest looking up real assholes?"

As Negan continued to laugh until he had tears coming out of his eyes Erin looked with concern at Carol. Her already endangered pregnancy was being done no favors by the stress of the attack, confronting this mad man, losing the battle to keep any other women from being taken and most of all seeing Daryl hurt and being unable to go to him or know his fate. So far she saw no signs of premature labor, but she was still very worried about her friend.

"You okay?" Erin asked Carol quietly.

"Gotta be." Carol said back with a sad little smile.

Without any warning Negan put his beefy hand on Carol's knee and though her face remained impassive Erin saw her go pale.

"Pregnant chicks are so fucking sexy, don't you think, Dwight?" Negan purred.

Dwight gave his boss a sickly smile and turned to look out the car window as if he was looking for walkers or anything else that could possibly be out there.

"This woman needs special care—she's at a critical state in her pregnancy—she should be on complete bed rest not traipsing around the countryside and dealing with the likes of you." Erin said sharply, staring the big man down.

Negan leaned forward and backhanded Erin, which threw her against the seat and then he returned his hand to Carol's knee.

"Stop." Carol said to both of them. Then she shocked Erin by putting her hand over top of Negan's.

"Don't do this, Carol..." Erin said softly, wiping the blood off the side of her mouth from where her teeth had cut into her lower lip from the blow.

"Is there anything you wouldn't do for us?" Carol heard Rick's words in her head. She knew exactly what she had to do to save them, to save everyone, including the child inside her, from this new nightmare.

"I made my choice, Erin. I'm his now." she looked the doctor steadily in the eye.

"I knew you were something else when I first saw you, gorgeous." Negan said approvingly, leaning close and kissing Carol on the cheek.

Only Erin saw the flicker of revulsion that Carol felt at the unwelcome intimacy. Only Erin saw the quick expression of ice cold calculation when Carol didn't resist as he turned her face to his and then let him kiss her full on the lips. He raised his hand to her nape, holding her still and deepened the kiss, not seeming to notice that she remained passive, allowing the kiss but not actively returning it.

"None of those pussies back there in Alexandria knew what to do with a woman like you, did they Carol?" Negan said, smiling smugly, basking in his superior skills of discernment. The man was so full of himself he was almost a caricature of manhood, blustering one minute, then seductive or violent the next.

Carol kept her eyes demurely downcast.

"Whoa! What the fuck!" Negan pulled back, looking down at her belly between them, astonished.

At this Carol really could smile in happiness—the baby was kicking, he was alive and kicking!

"You want to keep it, don't you..." Negan said, frowning, puzzled at her joy.

"It's my baby." Carol said, holding her hands protectively over her abdomen.

"Not by choice." Negan scoffed.

"Yes, by choice. I could've ended it when I found out. I didn't." Carol said telling the plain truth. "All life is precious."

Erin's eyes narrowed to hear her quoting Morgan of all people.

"All life?" Negan asked, sarcastically. "Even the lives of the animals that committed such unspeakable acts against you?"

"I have come to believe that all life is precious, Mr. Negan." It was the perfect evasive answer, though she knew he wouldn't understand it as such.

"I'm not sure if that philosophy is compatible with the present state of the world, ma'am." Dwight said with quiet disapproval, looking back to the limo interior.

"We're here, sir." the limo driver called back.

"Ah-home sweet home!" Negan said jovially, taking Carol's hand in his. "You're going to love it here, my dear."

The baby was crying.

Daryl struggled against the pull of sleep—he'd never been so exhausted in his life—but it was his turn for the midnight feeding and the baby was crying. Sighing, he opened his eyes and saw the pillow next to him was empty. He ran his hand over its surface, still warm; Carol must've just gotten up, taking his turn so he could keep sleeping.

Damn it. It was his turn.

Daryl rolled out of bed, scratching at his belly, surprised when he felt the gauze and tape of a wound dressing there. He frowned—his head felt fuzzy—he couldn't remember what he'd done...

Carol would know.

He left the room and headed down the hall to the nursery. Why was the baby still crying?

As he drew closer his feeling of unease turned to one of dread. Something was wrong; something had happened that he should know about...why didn't he remember?

When he came to the doorway he saw Carol standing in the middle of the room, her back to him, her trench knife in one hand, staring at the crib.

"Carol?"

"I can't." Carol said softly, "I know I have to, but I can't."

She turned to him, her breast bared for nursing, bleeding from short but deep scratches and a small bite next to the nipple. Tears were running down her face, all hope gone in her pale blue eyes.

All the blood went out of Daryl's head and he swayed, stumbling forward to the crib, the cries coming from it resolving into feral growls and hungry squeals...

Seated next to Daryl's infirmary bed, Rick looked down on the man he'd come to count on as his second. There were white gauze bandages on his bared torso from the small shrapnel wounds he'd received in the explosion. His brow was deeply furrowed, he made guttural soft moans and his eyes moved under the lids indicating REM sleep: restless dreaming sleep. All he wore was his boxers and his pale bruised chest and white legs looked incongruous compared to the dark tan of his arms and face. He looked helpless, which was a word Rick had never before associated with Daryl Dixon.

From their first encounter when the younger Dixon had barreled out of the forest cover wielding his crossbow like some later day redneck Robin Hood he had impressed Rick with his strength and will to live. A few sharp kicks to the walker who had ruined his kill, some name calling condescension at the group's weak walker killing skills, then his sharp flash of anger and squirrel tossing at the news Merle had been left behind in Atlanta had shown him as a hot head who could only be controlled by a skillfully delivered choke hold.

They'd both changed a lot since then; lost a lot since then. Rick's children and his family's safety had been what had kept him going; for Daryl it was becoming part of that family.

Carol had been the one to accept him first—or maybe it had been the other way around. Something in Daryl had decided to focus all his energies on the search for Sophia, bonding him and the newly widowed woman in a way that quietly made them a unit. At the prison, the next time they'd had time to stop and breathe after the farm, everyone knew what they meant to each other was somehow different than what they felt for the others in the group.

And it had only grown with everything that had happened to them after the fall of the prison. Carol had become stronger than any of them, willing to do whatever it took to make sure their family survived. Through all of that her one constant had been Daryl's belief in her. When Rick had doubted and grown fearful of what she had become, Daryl had never wavered. Watching their reunion in the woods outside Terminus had been like fitting the last stone in an arch, the keystone. It linked and solidified the bond between them, always supportive, always honest, always loving.

These last months in Alexandria had finally let them become what they were always meant to be, what they might never have been if not for the end of their previous lives. They'd gotten the chance to start over, with each other. They'd created a new life.

How was he supposed to tell Daryl that life might be over before it had barely begun?

"Are they dead?" the raw throated question startled Rick out of his reverie.

Daryl was awake, looking up at him, his bloodshot eyes full of pain.

"What?" Rick asked.

"Carol n' the baby—only reason she wouldn't be here now is if she was dead or gone. Which is it?" Daryl rasped.

"She went with Negan." Rick sighed, "To keep him from taking all the women and children."

"That's her." Daryl said in a kind of flat resignation. He reached up and felt the dried blood in his hair around a bandage covering the back of his head and then tried to sit up, but Rick stopped him with a hand to his chest.

"He took Erin too, so Carol would have a doctor for the baby." Rick said, hoping that would give Daryl something to hold on to.

"Who else?" Daryl said, shoving Rick back and sitting up, fighting sudden nausea.

"Daryl—you have a concussion—you're in no shape to—" Rick began.

"I said who the fuck else?" Daryl snapped, standing and quicker than Rick could react, he snatched the Colt from the other man's belt and whipped around, making Aaron, who had been coming up behind him to dose his IV, hold up his hands in surrender.

"Toss it." Daryl ordered Aaron who sighed, but did as he was told, throwing the syringe aside out of reach. Daryl motioned with the gun. "Come around where I can see you."

Again Aaron complied, keeping his hands up.

With his free hand Daryl ripped the IV needle out of his arm and threw it to the floor. Blood welled at the IV site and a slow drip started to run down his tensed forearm as he turned back and aimed the gun at Rick, who didn't raise his hands.

"Who else?" Daryl asked again.

"Rosita, Tara and Enid." Rick said and then wiped his hand down his face tiredly. "Probably Carl. He's missing..."

"How long?" Daryl asked.

Rick looked at Aaron.

"He took them three hours ago—you've been out about the same—Jesus says the Saviors' compound is about an hour from here." Aaron told them, adding a bit sarcastically. "Can I put my hands down now?"

Daryl snorted and lowered the pistol, but didn't return it to Rick.

Aaron lowered his hands and exchanged a worried look with Rick.

"Anyone else dead or down other than Spencer, Ron n' me?" Daryl asked. As always he'd assessed the room immediately on waking.

"No. We were lucky." Rick said placatingly.

The narrow eyed look of disbelief Daryl gave him made Rick look away in shame.

Of course they hadn't been lucky.

"I'll take Michonne, Abe n' Gray." Daryl said, grabbing his tattered jeans off the back of the chair by the bed and pulling them on one handed. He shoved his feet in his boots, put Rick's gun in the back waistband of his pants and then lifted his leather vest and shrugged it on over his bare bruised chest. Pushing past Rick and Aaron, he made for where his bow was propped against the wall by the doorway.

"Gray and Maggie stayed at Hilltop." Rick told him, grabbing his arm as he went by, "And you're not going anywhere."

Daryl looked down at Rick's hand and then back up at his face.

"I don't take orders from you anymore." Daryl said, his voice deadly, terrifyingly calm. His face remained impassive, but the coiled tension of his entire body was like a viper about to strike.

Rick released him and Daryl headed for the door. He moved like an old man, in obvious pain, but fighting it every step of the way, holding himself stiffly erect.

"Daryl—you don't know Negan—he's a monster—what he did to your friend Glenn? That was the tip of the iceberg. You have no idea what he's capable of. You go after her like this and you're throwing away your life." Jesus argued vehemently as Daryl walked past him.

"She is my life." Daryl said, picking up his bow and slamming open the door so he could walk through it.

There you are-a little Eulivia for sweetness; Carol hiding in plain sight again; Daryl having his worst nightmare ever (that made me cry writing it!) and heading off on his quest to make sure it doesn't come true.

Thanks for reading!