Carol's eyes filled with tears as she tried to blink away the image that haunted her for years, and she just nodded. She hated him for it, looking at him now she kinda felt like she wanted to rip his head off for making her feel even worse than she did right in that moment. She took a deep breath and kept looking away from him hoping her anger would subside. She watched Ollie rolling around playing with some car's he found in the small play area. She didn't bring herself to look at him, she knew he was looking at her. She just couldn't lift her eyes up off her son to look in his direction.

'Carol?'

'Yeah?'

'I slept with someone? I... I'm so sorry,' Daryl looked generally confused, 'I don't really remember... I just remember wanting it all to end,'

Carol fiddled with her drink watching Ollie and finally looking at Daryl, he looked like he was going to cry, she wanted to cry and he looked tired. 'What do you remember then?'

'I remember you crying ... a lot... drinking a lot... I remember vomiting on her blanket, then you leaving, I went on a bender for days or it might have been weeks, I just needed to forget,' Daryl said slowly, 'Then you never come back, Merle putting me in the shower one day, I was naked and he was slapping me a lot, he said you left me... he wouldn't let me drink,'

'Merle was there,' Carol said quietly, 'He picked me up from the bus to take me home, he saw you, I saw you,'

Daryl shut his eyes and couldn't remember, he'd been living in a drunken haze. Merle gone crazy, he slapped him hard across his face in anger he remembered that and yelling at him, he forced him to shower, told him he just threw his marriage away it made no sense to Daryl. He'd dressed him and made him come into their work, he didn't let him work but made him go all the same, didn't let him sleep and when he did he climbed into bed beside him. His brother pushed him to face the stages of grief that he was hiding from at a bottle of Jack before he drunk himself into a coma. He slowly come out of a haze looking around his house. No Sophia and no Carol.

He'd slowly put away the baby clothes and the baby stuff in the boxes. It had taken him months of stepping around all the items that Merle told him he had to face it and put it all away, he found the little love notes Carol had written to Sophia after she died, of her feelings and how much she loved and missed her, how her heart was broken. Spent nights finishing the scrap book Carol had started. He didn't know what the hell he was doing. He had to be doing something with his hands. He'd gone into the nursery she'd never slept in and cried for hours rocking on the floor with grief. Both for the baby they had lost and for the wife that he didn't know where she was or what had happened.

He'd shut down, was unemotional except for when he was home. He'd painted over the pink walls he'd painted when they found out they were having a girl with a netural colour so the room didn't mock him so badly every time he looked in. It had taken him months because he could only paint a little at a time, before it become overwhelming. He moved the baby bassinet out of their room, they hadn't dared to remake it from after that morning they found her still sleeping. He'd just pushed it into the nursery. He still looked at it, fingered the blankets on the tiny bed.

He'd called every one of their friends looking for her. Hired someone to look for her, Carol was no where to be found and now he had her sitting across from him telling him she come back but left because she caught him in bed with someone else. Merle had seen it all. He shut his eyes and couldn't remember. He remembered it all in a flood of memories, till a point that he didn't want to feel any more. He couldn't take coming home staring at the little shelf and everyone saying how sorry they were. He couldn't fix it or make Carol feel better. He remembered he sobbing with pain in her breasts and having to take pills to stop making milk, she cried and cried with pain trying to get some relief from it all. They tried grabbing at each other making love but it didn't help the heart ache then he went on more than a bender, he went missing for days drinking. Weeks of drinking nearly sent Carol over, he was missing in action and then ... and then he did that to her...he couldn't believe he would do that to her.

'I don't remember a lot after her funeral,' Daryl said quietly, 'I'm so sorry, I don't know what to say, you didn't deserve that,' he looked ashamed and couldnt' bring himself to look at her, he focused in on Ollie, he needed to talk to Merle, find out why Merle never told him. Why he didn't stop Carol from leaving. He watched the little boy rolling about playing with toys, it hurt to look at him and it hurt to look at Carol seeing that look on her face trying to talk.

'Look I only come back because of Ollie, how much did Tara tell you? I don't want to get into everything else, I just need to put it over there,' Carol told him, 'I can't I just can't feel that way again, so you going to help me or not?' Carol knew she was being hard with him. She didn't care, she needed to know if he would help her or not. She needed to cut herself off from any feelings she used to feel about him. They all pretty much died that day. She left and was in a daze for a few days staying at a hotel, sleeping and crying into her baby blanket before catching a bus out of town.

'I'm here aren't I? I got the house still, I paid it off you can come to the house,'

'I'm not moving in with a drunk!'

'I haven't drunk a drop since you left, that's not a problem,'

'And you don't tell him who you are until I decide if I want him to know,' Carol told him, 'And no strange women around him, no one around him except me,'

'I haven't been with anyone, I work I go home, I play pool with Merle and Glenn sometimes that's it,' Daryl told her, 'I'm single been that way since you left,'

'I mean it, he's my everything,' Carol held her hands out for the little boy to come back finish his food, he looked at Daryl and tried to study him. He was watching for anything that reminded him of Sophia, there was too much that he looked like Carol but he looked a bit what he'd imagined Sophia to look like. He felt sick to his stomach that he slept with someone else. He didn't even know who the hell he could of slept with they lived in a small community everyone knew they just lost their baby. He didn't think he would have...

'Ollie you wanna come visit at my house?' Daryl asked him, Ollie shook his head.

'Not sposed to go with Strangers,'

'With your ma? She can come too,' Daryl told him. 'I gotta nap, what do you want to do? Come hang out in the room or?'

'We might come for a bit then go to the little park not far from here for a bit,' Carol told him.

She held Ollies hand while they crossed the road to go back to the room. Daryl grabbed their bags out of the car. He went through to the small bathroom to take a shower. Ollie sat on the bed watching cartoons, there was one big bed and one small one in the room. She could sleep anywhere with Ollie. Ollie tucked up on the bed watching tv. She knocked on the bathroom door telling him she was going to go to the little store for a minute he needed to keep his ear out for Ollie. He told her to leave the bathroom door open so he could hear him.

She locked the motel room door, she didn't need anything. She just needed a few minutes break from Daryl and Ollie, their looks were the same, she'd tried to deny how much he looked like his dad. Now she needed to get herself sorted not to fall into the trap of feeling what she was feeling seeing him again. She went across the street to the store, she was going to use some of the money she had to buy him a few toys to play with. The weather looked bad and they wouldn't make it to the park at all. She also needed to text Tara and give her an ear full.

Ollie sat on the bed staring at the tv, he watched his mum leave him for a minute. His eyes went to Daryl as he come out wrapped in a towel to grab his clothes. Ollie stared at his back and sides, pointing to his tattoos. He pointed to a word on his side that was tattoo down from his side from his chest to his hip.

'Whats up buddy?'

'Sophia?' Ollie sat he crawled across on his knees, 'S, O, P, H, I, A... Sophia died, she was a baby before me, when she was a baby, Mummy has it,'

Daryl stood there as he touched his skin tapping each letter tattoo'd on his side, he pulled his tee shirt on over his head, 'Yeah she did, but... '

'But Mummy's happy now, I make her laugh,' Ollie watched as Daryl tried to put on boxer shorts without flashing anyone under his towel, He pulled on jog pants and turned looking at Ollie, 'Mummy has one,'

'One what?'

'S. O. P. H. I. A,' Ollie spelt out, he held his arms out for Daryl to pick him up. He hesitated before pulling him up into his arms, his lips meeting his head as he held his son for the first time, bringing him into him for the first cuddle, 'Don't be sad, she's a angel now, looking after other angels, Princess of Angels,'

'Princess of Angels huh? Who told you that?'

'Aunty Tara, she knows everything, she's very smart, she knows about Dinosaurs too, and...' Ollie grabbed Daryl face, 'Lets me eat lollies,' he whispered in Daryl's ear.

'Aunty Tara's a smart lady,'

'She's knows the Queen of the Fairies who's friends with the Queen of the Angels and she said Sophia is happy now and Mummy doesn't need to be sad,' Ollie told him, 'Don't be sad,'

'I'm not sad,' Daryl told him, he had water filling into his eyes, this kid was reading him like a book. He was very sad, he'd been sad for a long time.

'Dude!' Ollie wiped his tears that were forming, 'Aunty Tara said it so its true,'

'Ok little man we getting a little heavy for how tired I am,' Daryl tried to put him down but he hung like a monkey crawling around to his back and just stayed there hanging on while he had a quick shave and finished getting dressed. Carol come in surprised to see Ollie still riding on Daryl's back. Daryl looked sad and Ollie was in the process of wiping his tears again when Carol looked at him.

'Tell him about the Queen of the Fairies, and about S. O. P. H. I. A , he's got a Sophia tattoo too,' Ollie told her.

'I don't know if Daryl wants to hear the story about Sophia the princess of the Angels?'

'Show him,' Ollie pointed to her hip, Carol sighed and lifted her shirt to revel the tattoo with their daughters name and the princess Angel beside it.