It hadn't taken Maggie and Glenn long to get back with the building supplies. They'd been so excited that they'd left before breakfast. Now Daryl and Tyreese were working on making the fences as secure as they could, starting with building back up the column that was partially down.

"So how long have you been with the group?" Tyreese asked Daryl.

"I don't know man, pretty much since the beginning. They was campin' in the woods and me and my brother come up on 'em. They had another guy, Shane, that was sorta leadin' the group and he convinced us that it made more sense stayin' in a group. We had some meat and they had canned food, so we had us a real good supper that night and figured that it couldn't hurt to hang with 'em for a while." Daryl said.

"So there was someone in charge before Rick? What happened to him?" Tyreese asked.

"Went fool and tried to kill Rick. So Rick got him first." Daryl said.

"So Rick has been with the group longer than you have." Tyreese said. Daryl thought about it a minute.

"Nah, he ain't been with the group longer than me. He come after me and Merle was already there for a good while. But Rick was married to Lori, and she was with the group when I got there. She was with Shane. That's why Shane turned fool, I think." Daryl was quiet for a minute, continuing to work. "It's a shame." He said after a minute.

"What is?" Tyreese asked.

"Well, Shane turned fool 'cause a Lori goin' back to Rick and leavin' him. I guess he felt like Rick took somethin' away from him, even though it wasn't his to start with. Now it looks like Rick's gone fool 'cause Lori died and he don't got her no more. It's hard to understand, really. Lori was one damn annoying bitch. I don't know why either one of 'em would have wanted her bad enough to go fool." Daryl said.

Tyreese laughed. "Must have been some golden pussy." He said. Daryl laughed.

"Musta been." Daryl said.

"Well, maybe he'll start focusing on going from one annoying bitch to another. I don't know if you've noticed, but Rachel isn't exactly who I'd choose to be prime company." Tyreese said.

"I hadn't really noticed." Daryl said. Rachel was, at times, a little too bubbly for his tastes, and she talked way too much, but he hadn't paid her much attention.

"Don't get me wrong, she's not a bad person or anything, but I can't say that out of all the people of Woodbury I would have chosen her for my group. The thing about us is, we weren't really a group at Woodbury. We didn't have the same family type thing that y'all got going on. We just sort of ended up together after everything went down and that's how we got our group." Tyreese said.

"What you mean with all this "our" group "your" group business? Ain't we just a group? 'Cause if we ain't, which group gets credit for fixin' this damn fence?" Daryl asked.

"Well I know we're supposed to be, but I don't think Rick really thinks of us as part of the group." Tyreese said.

"Man I don't give a half a fuck what Rick thinks right now. Until he stops thinking bad shit about Michonne, I ain't listenin' to another damn word that comes outta his mouth. If he told me it was rainin' I'd still go outside to check." Daryl said. He was quiet for a few minutes. "This group's 'bout the only damn family I ever had, and it's a lot better than anything I had before all this shit, so if y'all wanna be part of it and help me make sure that don't nothin' happen to no one, then I got a lot more room for family."

Tyreese felt better. Daryl was a man that he could get behind as a leader. He knew that Daryl did think of this group as his family, and apparently somewhere in there was room for them. Daryl was the kind of man who seemed to feel very strongly about protecting his family, and that meant that the "for the good of the group" meant something when he said it.

"Hey, man, you got yourself a nice family." Tyreese said.

"I sure do, and I plan on keepin' it that way." Daryl said.

"Your little girl, she's pretty." Tyreese offered. Daryl smiled and wiped sweat off his forehead with the back of his arms.

"Yeah she is. She looks like her mama." Daryl said.

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Everyone was hustling around carrying bags and boxes of things back to "Carol's place," what their headquarters had become known as, cleaning out houses, and stacking up Walkers. Michonne started down the street, having taken a break to feed Hope after Carol had called her from down the street. Now she was going to the next house on in the line to handle whatever clean up needed to be done there.

Maggie and Beth saw Michonne coming. They were walking down the middle of the street carrying a crib.

"We got a crib for Hope." Maggie called out. "Did you pick a house yet?"

"No, not yet. Just take it back to Carol's place." Michonne said. "When you got the crib did you see…well…did you see anything?"

"Don't wanna talk about it." Maggie said. Michonne continued on and they took the crib back to Carol's place.

Michonne carefully stepped into another house, looking around cautiously. So far they'd only found one that was empty. It looked like the entire strategy of this neighborhood, when the whole thing hit, was to try and stay inside. Unfortunately it also looked like that hadn't work out for them as well as they had wanted it to. She couldn't figure it out, though, because all the doors were closed, so Walkers hadn't come in and bitten them. At least one member of each household must have been bit outside and brought it in. Surely Glenn would have the puzzle solved for them soon, since he seemed really interested in figuring out what had happened here.

"Not yet." Michonne said. They made their way through the house together. Nothing on the first floor. Michonne went first up the stairs and Beth followed a few steps behind her. When they got up there, they were met by two Walkers. Michonne was impressed, as she took down one, Beth took down the other. "You're getting good at this." Michonne said. Beth was beaming.

"You know, it's not that bad." Beth said. "Do you think that's all in this house?"

"I don't know, let's finish checking it out and then we'll get these two out of here. I hate when they're upstairs, it means you have to carry them farther."

After they checked the rest of the rooms, satisfied the house was clean, they carried the two Walkers out and to the piles that they were forming for burning in the street later.

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When people started breaking from clean up duty, satisfied they had cleaned enough houses for everyone to have one, it was time for everyone to figure out which one they wanted. Maggie was dying over one of them, so everyone unanimously agreed that she should have it because she wanted it so much, describing it as the perfect house. She'd already picked out the bedroom she was going to share with Glenn and she'd let Beth pick out her room. She'd even gone ahead and changed the linens with some clean ones that she found in the closet.

Tyreese let Sasha pick out a house for them. He didn't care which one they were in, so he might as well let her pick. When she selected one, he went in with her to look for sheets to change the beds.

Brenda also had her heart set on one particular house, so no one minded when she and Josh claimed it.

Rachel picked a house for her and Rick and Carl to share. When they went in to start getting things ready, Carol knew for sure what she'd already suspected. She had inherited Judith. It didn't matter, though. She was fond of her and at this point she was thankful to have her. She got Tyreese to help her move the crib to one of the extra houses, really not caring where she ended up.

Michonne let Daryl pick the house since he'd never had a house before. He picked a nice one with three bedrooms, and Michonne was pleased to see it wasn't too badly decorated. Together they moved the crib into the room that Daryl had decided would be Hope's room. He wanted a rocking chair for that room too, and she promised that they'd try to find one. She thought she had seen one in the house that Brenda and Josh had chosen and she was pretty sure that she could talk them into parting with it.

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"We got us a house, 'Chonne." Daryl said, lying in bed and watching as Michonne finished sponging off and started drying off in the bathroom that connected to their bedroom. "And we got us a big bed with sheets and more pillows than I ever seen in my life."

Michonne had to admit that she had done a pretty good job fixing up the bed with the linens she found. It did have a lot of pillows, but she had been excited about all the pillows that she'd found. Maybe she'd overdone it, but right now it looked like it was going to feel like sleeping on a cloud. After dinner everyone had headed to their houses to call it an early night.

"I hope you washed off good before you got in that bed, Daryl. You were smelling pretty ripe at dinner." Michonne said.

"I bathed while you were puttin' Hope down, and you weren't exactly smellin' like no daisy yourself." Daryl said. Michonne smiled at him.

"You're right, we do have a nice house, Daryl." She said walking toward him. "And I know what I'd like to do right now." She crawled up on the bed.

"What is that?" Daryl asked, grinning.

"I'd like to test out the mattress and see how it is." She said. She straddled him and he grinned harder, leaning up to kiss her.

"I like when you do that." He said.

"Do what?" She asked, kissing his neck.

"Get all predatory on me." He replied. Michonne laughed.

"Am I predator?" Michonne asked.

"Sometimes you are, and sometimes you're just kinda soft. I like that too. I guess I like most everything about you." Daryl said.

"Mmm…" She kissed him again. "Well how about you show me just how much you like me." She said.

"We can be as loud as we want." Daryl said. "I'm gonna show you how to be the loudest you've ever been before."

He had a sort of devilish grin on his face that Michonne hadn't seen before.

"I'll accept that challenge." She said. "But you're putting Hope back down if we wake her up."

"Deal." Daryl said, pulling her to him.

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Carol couldn't sleep. It was too quiet. She had never felt so alone in her entire life. She'd moved Judith's crib into her room just to have the sound of the sleeping baby, and she was considering moving her into the bed with her.

Everyone else had somebody they could talk to. Judith hadn't started really talking yet, but she made some sounds, all gibberish. Carol was the only one who didn't have anyone. She'd watched sadly as they had all headed into their houses, looking very excited about the prospect of having a home. She didn't have a home. She had a house that had a bed in it and a crib with a baby that wasn't even hers. As much as she really wanted to love Judith and take her as her own, part of her lived in fear that Rick would want her back one day, and Carol had absolutely no real right to the child, so she'd have to give her back. Then she wouldn't have anybody.

Carol tossed and turned for a while. She couldn't do this. She felt like she was going crazy.

If Hershel were here, he'd have lived with me. He'd have understood that I can't do this anymore. I don't know how to be alone.

After what seemed like hours, Carol got up and got dressed. She got Judith out of her crib, the baby waking up just a little and then falling back asleep against her shoulder. She picked up her knife and she started out the door.

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Daryl was the first to wake up to the sound of pounding on the door. It took him a minute to figure out what the sound was and by that time Michonne was stirring.

"What is it?" Michonne mumbled.

"I don't know." Daryl said. "It sounds like someone beating on the door."

"Maybe something's wrong." She said. Daryl was already up and searching around for his boxer shorts.

"Well I figured that much." He said. "Walkers don't exactly go around knocking on doors like the Avon lady." He heard Michonne snicker.

Daryl got his shorts on and grabbed his crossbow, just in case. He went downstairs and opened the door.

It was Carol, standing on his porch with Lil' Asskicker.

"What the hell?" Daryl asked.

"Please, Daryl, can I stay in the other room? I can't handle the quiet." Carol said. "I didn't know where to go and I can't handle it."

Daryl stared at her for a second. It was obvious from her voice that something was really wrong with her. It was cracking at intervals and sounded shaky.

"You just go trottin' around at night with a baby all by yourself?" Daryl asked.

Carol pulled the knife she was carrying strapped to her leg out of its holster and showed it to him. Then she put it back.

"I had to come by myself, Daryl. There was no one else to come with me." Carol said. Daryl pulled her inside and shut the door.

"Yeah, you can stay with us. You'll need to change the sheets 'cause we ain't done that room. 'Chonne found a bunch of sheets in the closet upstairs." Daryl said.

"Thank you, so much." Carol said. "I'll find them and change the sheets." She whispered.

"Tomorrow I'll get Lil' Asskickers crib." Daryl said.

When they got to the top of the stairs, Daryl bid Carol goodnight.

"Goodnight, Daryl, and don't worry, I promise I won't listen to anything." Carol said, opening the hall closet with the one hand she had free to find some sheets for the bed.

Daryl went in the bedroom without another word. He shut the door and shucked his boxers, coming back to bed and snuggling in beside Michonne.

"It was Carol." Daryl said, hugging her to him.

"I heard." She said.

"I told her she could stay with us. Is that OK with you 'Chonne?" Daryl asked.

"It's just fine with me." Michonne said. She hugged her pillow. She hadn't thought of it before, but it made perfect sense. Carol was alone and no one knew how to be alone anymore. Michonne couldn't imagine what it would feel like to be by herself. All they knew how to do now was to be together. It was only right that Carol not be punished because she wasn't in a couple and she didn't have any biological family left. She deserved to be taken into someone's home, and Michonne was glad that she had felt comfortable enough to choose to knock on their door instead of someone else's. They would be more than happy to share their home with Carol and Judith.