AN: Happy Saturday everyone. Here's a little more for you. It's a pajama day today, so I'm sort of making the rounds updating fics. I might get back around to this one today, or it might be a bit.

I'm glad to see you all enjoyed my fluff. This one's a little fluffy and it's got a little character development that will have to do with more coming up in the future.

I hope you enjoy and, as always, let me know what you think!

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Carol was lying in bed, naked, and she couldn't concentrate on what was supposed to be taking place. She was only half aware of the fact that Daryl was trying to problem solve like a champ at the moment. He'd gone so far as to get up and put Lincoln on the floor, noisily sliding his stairs away from the bed so that he couldn't join them.

The part of her mind that was focused on what was taking place enjoyed the feelings of his mouth searching her out, sucking and pulling at her nipples, his fingers between her legs teasing her, tickling her, trying everything he could think of, but she couldn't focus entirely on him or on what he was proposing.

Daryl huffed and hovered over her, pulling her face toward him.

"OK," he said. "Ya ain't even wet an' tryin' ta get more I done rubbed off every damn bit we had ta work with so ya gonna tell me why ya don't wanna do this?"

Carol had been trapped in some kind of odd emotional spiral since they'd had dinner at the Greene household. She felt like internally she was on the scrambler ride at the fair and everything shifted gears so often she didn't even know what was going on. She hadn't put anything in the cookie jar because, honestly, she wasn't even sure where to begin to express what was going on.

Beth had mentioned them getting married and it had started the entire thing. It had flipped a switch to the scrambler and now she didn't know how to turn the damn thing off.

"I'm sorry," she offered. "I could take care of you…"

She started to shift and Daryl put his palm against her chest, pushing her back down. He propped himself up on his elbow but didn't move his hand and only barely raised up on the pressure.

"I done been tryin' ta fix ya so long I don't even care no more," Daryl said. "I ain't lookin' for ya ta take care a' me I'm lookin' for ya ta tell me what the hell's goin' on with ya 'cause ya ain't put shit in the jar an' that's the deal."

Carol sighed.

"There's nothing to put in the jar. I don't know what to say," Carol said.

"Well for fuck's sake," Daryl said, "say somethin'! Everytime I do this…" He rubbed at her clit and she shifted a little, "it gets a rise outta ya. But tonight I'm pretty damn sure that I done made it sore an' ya ain't even bit'cha damn lips nor rolled ya head back none. Most I'm gettin' outta ya is squirmin' an we done travelled 'round the bed 'bout four times now."

Carol almost chuckled at him. He wasn't mad and she could see that. He was frustrated, but not mad.

"Do you love me?" She asked.

Daryl curled his lip at her.

"Fuck kinda question is that? Ya know I love ya," he said.

Carol knew that he said he loved her, and she felt, most of the time, like he loved her, but the scrambler inside of her had her going back and forth on whether she believed it or not.

"Do you want this baby?" Carol asked.

Daryl trailed his fingertips across her stomach causing her to flinch involuntarily with the tickle.

"Ya know the answer ta that question too, Carol. We done been over this…how many times we gotta talk about it?" Daryl asked.

Carol realized that she was going over things that they'd talked about, in some form or another, several different times. This was nothing new. There were no new feelings, but she didn't know how to explain that whether they were new feeling or old feelings they never seemed to go away. She didn't know how to just put them away somewhere and never hear from them again. And right now…right at this moment…she felt like she hand more of them than she even knew what to do with.

"It's OK," Carol said. "You're right…" She started to try to roll over, but Daryl put his hand back on her chest and pushed her down again.

"Aaack!" He scolded with the same sound he used just before they caught Lincoln marking his territory somewhere in the house. "Ya ain't goin' no damn where."

"I'm just going to sleep," Carol protested.

Daryl sighed.

"I love ya and I want the baby. OK? Next question?" Daryl asked.

"I don't have anymore," Carol said. It was a lie, but now she felt like she didn't want to keep going. She knew that Daryl was frustrated and she couldn't blame him at all. Being asked the same question over and over and being expected to keep answering it was probably almost infuriating. "This isn't about you, Daryl, OK? This is my problem, not yours."

Daryl pushed down against her when she tried to roll again.

"That hurts…" she said. Daryl let up a little frowning at her.

"Ain't tryin' ta hurt'cha but ya done asked me if I love ya an' ya asked me if I want the baby, so I don't reckon this sounds like ya problem ta me. Sounds like it might be our problem an' ya ain't rollin' ya ass away from me 'til ya tell me what the hell is goin' on with ya!"

Carol looked at him in the dim light. He had the bathroom light still on so he could see when he got up to return to Lincoln his access to the bed, and the light spilled over them. Daryl's eyebrows were tightly knit and he was chewing a little at the inside of his mouth.

"Do you think the baby changes the way you think about me?" Carol asked.

Daryl looked like he was considering the question.

"I reckon…" he said. "It's weird 'cause now I kinda think about ya like there's more than one of ya. 'Cause it ain't really you and it ain't really the baby. Ya like some kinda…I don't know…some kinda thing all wound up together."

Carol nodded a little.

"But do you think that if it were just me that you'd still feel the way you do about me? You didn't tell me you loved me until you knew about the baby," Carol said.

Daryl snorted.

"That's 'cause by the time I figured it out ya already told me ya was bakin' the thing," Daryl said. "I knowed it before ya told me there was a kid in ya…but I didn't know what ta call it."

"So you think you'd still love me if there weren't any baby?" Carol asked.

Daryl shifted.

"What's wrong?" He asked. "Somethin' wrong with the baby?"

Carol shook her head.

"But if there were," Carol asked, "would it change anything?"

Daryl leaned in then and Carol expected him to kiss her, but he didn't, not on the lips. He kissed her cheekbones, one and then the other and then he kissed her forehead, his fingers on her jaw, turning her face.

"I ain't had a whole buncha shit in my life, Carol," Daryl said. "Most a' what I do got, though, I've had near so damn long that I can't even remember when I got it or how it came ta be mine. I ain't never had nothin', though, that I gave half a damn about like I do with you. Hell, I didn't even know I fuckin' wanted ya 'til I got'cha…an' I keep fuckin' that shit up so much it scares the hell outta me. Now I want both of ya, but if it was just you then I'd be OK with that too."

Carol could feel tears welling up in her eyes and she was having a hard time breathing and trying to hold back the sobs. Daryl had returned his hand to her chest and now he looked at her.

"Ya alright? Ya hurt?" He asked.

Carol realized that it was probably dark enough that he couldn't see tears welling in her eyes so the sudden spasming of her chest probably didn't have much of an explanation. When she opened her mouth to try to explain it to him, though, she started crying and she couldn't help it.

"Hey, it's OK," Daryl said. He sat up and she felt him running his hands up and down her arms. "Tell me why ya cryin'…what's wrong?"

Carol couldn't really tell him until she'd calmed down a little and gotten control of her emotions, the scrambler of emotion inside of her shifting gears for a bit and heading in the other direction. She pulled herself up to lean on her elbows and Daryl's hand went back like he was going to push her down again. She closed her hand around his wrist.

"I'm not going anywhere," she said, her voice sounding water logged from the sobbing. "I could lose this baby, Daryl, and if I do I don't want to think that you'd go too. I don't want to think that you wouldn't think our relationship was worth fighting for."

"I ain't goin' nowhere," Daryl said. He shifted around and sat up straight in front of her, crossing his legs like he was settling in for whatever duration of conversation needed to take place here. "I done unpacked my stuff, so I ain't goin' nowhere 'til I get kicked out."

Carol smiled at him a little.

"I'm not kicking you out," Carol said.

"Why ya worried 'bout the baby?" Daryl asked. "Ya went ta the doctor, didn't ya? Ya said they told ya it was all fine, so why ya worried? Somethin' happen ya ain't told me about? Ya feelin' OK?"

"Daryl…when I was with Ed…" she saw the look cross Daryl's face that happened every time she mentioned Ed. She tried to avoid talking about him as much as possible because it stirred all kinds of things up in Daryl. "I was pregnant once."

"I thought ya said ya ain't done this before," Daryl said, narrowing his eyes at her.

"It wasn't the same," Carol said.

"So ya lied?" Daryl asked.

Carol shook her head.

"Not exactly, Daryl," she said. "It wasn't like this…it wasn't something that I got to really have…it wasn't something I could enjoy and talk about."

Daryl frowned.

"But ya was havin' his kid…" Daryl said.

Carol felt bad. She felt like from the beginning she should have told Daryl that she'd been pregnant with Ed's child at some point. Maybe telling him back then would make him not have the disappointed look that he had now. She wasn't really sure if he was actually mad about it, or just simply mad that he didn't know.

"Daryl, I lost that baby," Carol said. "And the books that the doctors gave me…they said that I have a better chance of losing this baby than other women because I lost that one before."

Daryl's facial expression was pretty much the same. It was sullen but Carol assumed he was processing it…doing whatever it was that Daryl did when he was presented with something that he needed time to wrap his mind around.

"Are you mad at me?" She asked after a minute. She could feel her stomach churning just from the conversation and she worried that she was going to have to leave abruptly if it didn't calm down some. This wasn't the best time to go running for the bathroom and she tried, mentally, to convey that message to her body.

Daryl made a face at her. He shook his head after a minute.

"No," he said, softly. "I ain't mad…what happened ta ya?"

Carol sighed and lie back down against the bed. The events of the night she'd played over and over in her head so many times that it almost felt like she hadn't been there. It felt more like she had just watched the whole thing on a movie or something.

"Ed came home that night," Carol said. "He'd been drinking. Down at the Watering Hole probably and he was pissed about something…I don't even remember what. He drug me out of bed…started hitting me…kicking me…" Carol took a breath and watched in her mind as the film she created played again. She tried not to let herself get worked up. If she was going to tell Daryl any of the stories of her life, she was going to have to learn to do it without crying…or at least without crying so much she couldn't finish the story. She rolled and this time Daryl let her since she was rolling facing him. She tucked her pillow under her head. "Ed never wanted the baby…and I shouldn't have said anything about it. It might have been OK if I had just let him forget it was there…but I wasn't thinking so I begged him not to…"

She felt Daryl put his hand on her shoulder. He wasn't giving her permission not to continue, but he was doing his best to offer her some sort of support. He squeezed her a little and she stared straight ahead, knowing that if she looked at his face she might not stay as laced together as she'd been thus far.

"I just didn't want him hurting the baby. I thought that I could…I don't know…absorb most of it. When I said it, though, it just threw him into a whole new level of rage. He drug me…choking me…to the door that led to the basement," she paused, wiping at the tears that didn't do what they were supposed to do and stay inside. "I told the doctors before that I'd fallen down the stairs," Carol said. "I never fell down those stupid fucking stairs…not even that time…"

Daryl rubbed her back.

"That's enough," he said, his voice a little sharp. Carol turned to look at him. His face was twisted up in an odd sort of way and he looked almost boiling mad. "Don't say no more or I'm liable to drive ta fuckin' county tonight an' see when the fuck they got visitin' hours."

Carol frowned. She felt like she couldn't manipulate her face into any other position at the moment. It was frozen in the frown or either she could give in and fall back into another round of sobs and she didn't want that. She felt sure that the sobbing would make her throw up.

"We ain't got no basement, Carol," Daryl said. "An' the step down from the side door…it ain't no big fall. Ya might scrape ya knee or somethin' if ya fell, but it ain't not big fall. An' I ain't never gonna hurt'cha like he did. Don't matter if ya pregnant or not, I ain't gonna hurt'cha…not on purpose. So ya reckon ya could keep the kid this time? If none a' that shit happens?"

Sometimes Carol worried that the same things that had happened with Ed would eventually happen with Daryl. One day he was just going to snap and she wouldn't even recognize him. He'd begin to act like Ed had acted and she'd go falling back into her life just like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. She knew, too, that when she thought about those things it had little to do with Daryl. There wasn't any reason at all for her to fear that things were going to happen that way…Daryl wasn't like Ed…but it didn't mean that she didn't worry about it and it didn't mean that her mind didn't sometimes try to convince her that she was wrong because she'd never realized Ed was like he was until it was too late. They were already married, and she felt trapped.

"I don't think you'd do that, Daryl…" Carol said. "And I'm going to try to keep the baby safe…"

Daryl unfolded his legs then and leaned back down, pushing her back on her back again. She went over easy, letting him move her. He bumped her chin quickly with the knuckle of his pointer finger and kissed her, his tongue gliding around inside her mouth. She closed her eyes, letting herself sigh into his mouth. His hand went to her chest. She could feel her heart pounding from all the feelings that she'd stirred up…from the scrambler of emotions…and she wondered if he could feel it too. Her answer came a minute later.

"Ya fuckin' heart's poundin' like ya gonna have a heart attack," Daryl said. He lie down next to her and pushed his body against hers, pulling her tight against him. "This whole damn thing's got'cha fuckin' terrified an' there ain't shit for ya ta be freakin' out about. I love ya…I love the damn kid…I ain't gonna hurt ya an' I'll break the fuckin' neck a' any damn body that tries ta hurt'cha or my kid, OK?"

Carol chuckled a little.

"OK," she said, softly. She was starting to calm down, starting to believe his words and to sink back into the warm comfort she'd felt before her mind started getting the best of her. Daryl's hands ran along her body again, but this time he wasn't seeking out the sexual pleasure he'd been trying to tease from her earlier. Now, at best, she could describe what he was doing as petting her, rubbing his hands down in search of comfort and calm…and it was working.

Daryl chuckled.

"Fuckin' shit messin' with ya an' gettin' ya all fuckin' worked up," he grumbled. He threw his leg over her and she almost chuckled as he slid her body along the bed and almost completely under his, wrestling about a bit until she was almost entirely covered by him, but he still managed not to be weighing down on her with much more than a comfortable pressure.

She chuckled a little.

"What are you doing?" She asked, looking up at the ceiling.

"What the hell's it look like I'm doin'?" Daryl asked. "I'm burrowin' ya."

Carol giggled.

"It feels like you're burying me," she said.

Daryl huffed a little, still covering her.

"That's alright," he said. "Ain't shit gonna bother ya like this. Can ya breathe?" He asked.

Carol thought about it a second and giggled again.

"Yes," she said.

"Am I squashin' ya?" Daryl asked.

"No…not really," Carol said.

"Am I squashin' the baby?" Daryl asked.

Carol giggled again.

"No, Daryl, I don't think so…" she responded.

"Fine, then," Daryl said, he moved his arm and pulled the cover up over them, returning his arm to its original position a second later. "Can't nothin' fuck with ya an' I bet'cha feels pretty damn save in there, don't it?"

Carol giggled and thought about it. She did feel pretty safe at the moment.

"It kinda does, actually," she responded.

"There ya go," Daryl said. "Now, I love ya…calm the fuck down an' get some sleep. Ya gonna be up 'fore long anyway."

Carol got quiet for a minute.

"I figured you'd try to have sex with me again," Carol admitted.

Daryl turned his head and kissed the side of her face, right at the jaw before readjusting himself a little in his odd position.

"Not right now," he said. "Reckon I'll save that up for tomorrow. Maybe we sneak in a lil' lovin' 'fore dinner?"

Carol snickered.

"I think we could do that," Carol said. She lie there for a moment. "You never put Lincoln's stairs back."

Daryl sighed.

"He's done asleep in the other room. Ain't heard his toenails. I reckon that big damn bed he got an' the couch outta hold him for one night. Now close ya eyes an' go ta sleep 'fore I gotta figure out how ta bury ya deeper so ya can't even see nothin'," Daryl responded.

Carol sighed and closed her eyes. She was tired…very tired in fact. Now that she was coming down off of all the random worries that rolled around in her brain she could feel the need to rest. She was also warm and comfortable with Daryl lying there like he was.

"I love you, Daryl," Carol said.

"Love ya too, woman," Daryl responded. Carol could tell from his voice that he was already working on sleeping. She closed her eyes, hoping that she followed soon after him.