The traffic in the house was almost mindboggling at one point. Daryl sat back on the couch, the baby wrapped in his arms. He wanted everyone to see his son, he really did, but he didn't care for the bunching about they did, and if one more person made a move to reach out like they were going to try to take the baby, he thought he might go insane.

Upstairs things seemed to be calming down. The traffic from up there passed back and forth a couple of times carrying sheets and buckets of water and moving things. Daryl left them to what they were doing since it seemed to be organized and understood by everyone involved, and he focused on trying to keep grabby hands away from his son.

Rachel had come down and wanted to hold the baby. Stella wanted to hold the baby even though Maggie had given her the one that she'd acquired to hold for the moment. Even Libby was a little grabbish and Daryl just didn't care for it. Sadie was the only saving grace of the women, apparently seeing that he didn't really want to let them hold him, because she sat beside him on the couch, sort of pushing them away for him.

Hope and Judith climbed on the couch next to him, using Sadie as a jungle gym, and he tried to be patient with their jostling of the cushions. He realized they were small and the "bebe" as they both called him was a new phenomenon to them, especially given their recent fascination with Michonne's stomach, but he'd seen what the two of them were capable with when it came to toys and Zeb was far more breakable than a toy.

Sadie held them back, though, letting them peek over Daryl and squeal at the baby. He thought they could have been quieter, too, but Sadie wasn't very good at policing the noise.

Finally, his saving grace appeared in the form of Carol who came down behind Muh. Muh didn't say anything to anyone, she merely passed through the house and disappeared out the door. Carol, however stood at the bottom of the stairs and cleared her throat so that everyone somewhat glanced in her direction.

"I know there's a lot of excitement, right now, but I'm going to have to disturb you all," she said. "Rachel, do you think you could see about getting everyone fed?"

Rachel nodded.

"Libby, Stella, could you give me a hand?" Rachel asked, getting up from where she was sitting on the arm of the chair.

Both of the young women stood up and went with her out the door and Daryl was already grateful that the crowd was lessening a little.

"Daryl, Sadie's going to watch the girls for a little longer for us, why don't you come upstairs now? Michonne's resting and I think that she'd like to have a little look at that baby and see if he's maybe ready to have his first meal," Carol said.

Daryl didn't need more than one invitation to get up from the couch and leave everyone that was still in his living room to figuring out that visitation was over. He eased through the room and past Carol to start up the stairs. When he got to the top, the room was cleared out except for Michonne who was lying in bed, her eyes closed. In the time that he'd been gone, they'd cleaned the room up and changed the blankets and sheets. Also, from somewhere, Michonne had earned an IV and the sight of it worried Daryl a little.

"She OK?" He asked, trying to keep his voice down.

Carol raised an eyebrow at him and then nodded, smiling.

"Just fine" she said. "Resting is all. It's been a long day," Carol said.

Daryl was still leery as he looked into the room, almost hesitant to go in. Carol pushed at him.

"Go on, Daryl, she's fine," Carol urged. "Is it the IV that's freaking you out? Mark just did that to hydrate her quickly, that's all. It's nothing serious."

Daryl felt a little relieved, but he was still worried. It seemed like these days you could get your hopes up too quickly very often and he didn't want to find out that something was wrong that he hadn't anticipated.

"I'm fine, Daryl," Michonne said. "Just fine."

He noticed that at first she didn't open her eyes, but finally she did.

"Mark asked me if I wanted it since it's quicker and being dehydrated isn't much fun when you're trying to make milk," Michonne said. "Come on, I want to see the baby."

Daryl smiled then and went to the bed. Michonne eased herself up a little on the pillows. Daryl rested his son in her arms and the baby stirred. Michonne unbuttoned the shirt that she was wearing, one of the long sleeved shirts that Daryl kept around for the cold weather, and worked a moment to convince the baby to latch onto the nipple that she offered him. Daryl watched, worried at first because the baby didn't seem to be catching onto what he was supposed to be doing, but finally he got it.

"Are you sure ya OK?" Daryl asked. He rubbed Michonne's cheek and brought his lips to hers, kissing her again. She leaned into the kiss a little, tangling her tongue with his for a second before pulling back.

"I'm fine, Daryl," she said. "Mark's gone to get me something and apparently I'm going to feel even better when he gets back."

Daryl watched her as she rubbed her finger across the baby's cheek.

"Did Hope see him?" She asked.

"Kinda," Daryl said. "They was too many people down there, 'Chonne. Everybody's all crazy actin' and grabbin' at the baby and it's got Hope and Judith all stirred up."

"We might let her sleep on it," Michonne said. "In the morning she'll be calmer and we can bring her in here and let her sit with us a little. She's got to be able to inspect him and realize she's got to be gentle. It won't be that bad as long as we're calm too."

"He's perfect, 'Chonne," Daryl said, looking at his son who was very lazily sucking, appearing to alternate between wanting to suck and deciding that sleeping was a much better idea.

"He is perfect, Daryl," Michonne said. "Do you still like the name?"

Daryl smiled.

"I do like it," Daryl said. "I already been tryin' it on him."

Michonne smiled.

"You remember this means it's going to be a while before we sleep well, don't you?" Michonne asked.

Daryl nodded. He remembered well how often Hope woke up when she was very little. They napped more than they slept and he was always grateful if they had any time and energy to spend together while she slept.

"We need to haul the crib in here," Daryl said. "So he don't wake up Jude an' Hope."

"That's true," Michonne said. "Maybe Tyreese can help you do that?"

"I ain't seen him since I was outside, but I'm sure he ain't gonna mind. He and Beau had to go and find a crib across the community for Maggie and wash it up. Movin' one across the hall ain't no big deal," Daryl said.

Michonne finally pulled the baby away from her breast, seeing that he had lost interest in it. He whined a little and she burped him.

"Daryl, do you think you could go in the nursery and get one of the pacifiers that we put in the basket on the corner of the changing table in there? Any one of them will do. They're all clean." Michonne said.

Daryl got up and quickly slipped into the room. The house was quiet and he was thankful for that. He didn't know where everyone had gone, but at least they weren't crowding into his home anymore. He found the pacifiers and picked through them, finding the one he liked best for Zeb. He knew the baby wouldn't care, but he still wanted to pick out the best one.

Daryl brought the pacifier back. Michonne took it and offered it to the baby who took it almost immediately and stopped making the whining noise that he kept producing from time to time. Daryl leaned back in the bed beside Michonne, ignoring the fact that he was somewhat hanging off the edge, and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. She rested her head against him, and both of them were content, for a while, to simply watch Zeb sleeping.

111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

Tyreese had helped Daryl move the crib so that the baby could sleep in the room with them. He'd also carried the dishes from their dinner back to headquarters so that Carol wouldn't feel the need to make the trip in the cold. He knew that Muh wanted to limit, at least for a bit, how much cold air she breathed in, requesting that she wrap a scarf around her face when she insisted on being outside, and he was inclined to agree with anything that Muh said regarding people's health…especially Carol's.

When Tyreese got back to the house, Daryl and Michonne had the door to their room closed. He could hear the howling and new that their brand new baby boy was breaking his silence to show them how well he could keep them awake. He chuckled a little as he slipped into the nursery.

"The bebe crying," Judith said to Carol who was trying to wrestle her into her pajamas.

"Yes, the baby is crying. He's OK, though, he's just crying because he's a baby," she said.

Tyreese checked on Hope. She was already in her crib, apparently having received earlier attention from either Carol or Sadie who had brought the girls. Now she was lying on her back, snuggling whatever kind of animal it was that she had…he'd never been sure what it was supposed to be, and staring up at the ceiling. He could tell that she was well on her way to going to sleep, but she grinned at him when he looked over the side of the crib.

"Why are you smiling at me?" Tyreese growled. The voice made Hope giggle and Tyreese chuckled. When he was genuinely angry about something, the girls would almost cry at the same voice and facial expression, but somehow they seemed to know when he was doing it just to play with them and they both thought it was the funniest thing in the world. He reached in the crib, tucking the baby blanket around Hope's middle and leaning in to kiss the hand she offered up to him to kiss.

"Scare me, Dada!" Judith commanded. Tyreese turned around to find Carol still sitting on the floor and Judith now in her bed with her duck.

Tyreese worked for a second to wipe the smile off his face, trying to narrow his eyebrows and look as angry as he possibly could, despite the fact that Judith was already wearing a broad grin in anticipation of the act.

"You better be asleep right now, Judith!" He growled. Judith cackled and plopped back on her pillow, hugging her duck up to her face and peeking around it.

"Again!" She squealed.

"There is no again at bedtime!" Tyreese growled. The girl squealed again and he stooped down, kissing her forehead. He smiled at her this time. "Alright, goodnight, Jude. It's really bedtime."

Tyreese reached around and pulled Carol up off the floor by the arm that she kept flapping against the back of his leg as though he was going to forget that she was there and waiting on him. They bid goodnight to the girls, both of whom were more than seasoned by this routine, and left the nursery, blowing out the lamp in there and closing the door.

"Hope wasn't too upset tonight?" Tyreese asked, guiding Carol toward the bedroom.

"No," she said, shaking her head. She crossed the room and quickly starting undressing to get her pajamas on before she froze to death. "We've been going through what was going to happen so much that neither of the girl's seemed to notice. She did make Sadie put her to bed, though. She tried to go home with her."

Tyreese chuckled, shucking his clothes and crawling into bed as quickly as possible.

"Come on, woman, it's cold in here," he said, holding up the cover for Carol to slip under it. She slipped under and slid up against him. He gently wrapped his arm around her waist and waited for her to blow out the lamp and settle down. Across the hall it sounded like Zeb started up again for whatever reason. "The girls like Sadie a lot," Tyreese said, once they'd settled in.

Carol yawned.

"Sadie's patient with them. She knows how to handle kids…I guess she had a lot of practice once upon a time," Carol said.

"Little Zeb is giving his parents a rough first night," Tyreese said.

Carol snickered.

"Do you remember Hope? She was the same way," Carol said. "I don't remember Jude being so bad, but I didn't have her full time when she was really small."

Tyreese grunted his understanding, moving his hand a little to run his palm over Carol's hip and down her thigh.

"When Julie was born," Tyreese said, "I feel like we didn't sleep for six months. I know it was less than that, but at the time it just seemed like she never wanted to sleep. What's worse was I working the whole time, so I had to be up early and at work. I tried to get up at night with her some, but after the first week of not sleeping, I thought I'd die. My wife finally told me to sleep in the other room so I wouldn't get fired."

Carol chuckled a little.

"I bet you were a good daddy," she said. She yawned. "I could see you all sleep deprived. Poor Daryl. He's done this once already, but he still doesn't know how to process everything with Zeb. You can see that he thinks he's going to break him, and he's worried about Michonne."

"I think that's normal," Tyreese said. "When they're that little they seem terribly easy to break, and Lori just freaked everyone out about babies being born."

"True," Carol said, "but Michonne didn't have any trouble. To be honest, she makes it look easy." Carol was quiet for a second. "But then again, Michonne has a tendency to make a lot of things look easy."

"What about Sophia?" Tyreese asked. "What was it like when she was born?"

"Which part?" Carol asked. He felt her put her hand over his, threading her fingers between his.

"Whichever part," he said. It wasn't always easy to get Carol talking about her past. A lot of it she seemed to just not want to talk about. She got into definite stages of wanting to leave the past there, behind her.

"Let's see," she said. "Ed left me at the hospital…he picked me up three hours after they released me. So I got to spend that time bonding with her in the lobby of the hotel…"

Her voice trailed off and Tyreese felt an obvious shiver run through her body. He freed his hand from hers and brought it around, rubbing her back a little.

"Hey, don't tell me about Ed, OK? You don't have to think about him," he said. He didn't want her to talk about Ed, but now that she had he knew how this would go down. She'd talk with him a little while longer, and they'd go to sleep, and the nightmares would return. There were always nightmares, some worse than others, on any night she happened to talk about Ed before she tried to sleep. "Just tell me about Sophia, the good parts…"

After a moment, Tyreese could feel some of the tension being released from her back muscles and Carol sighed.

"Sophia was a good baby," she said. "She cried, sure, but she was just a baby. She didn't have any other way to communicate. I didn't think she was bad, but Ed…" she stopped. "She was a good baby," Carol continued after a second.

Tyreese reached around her, turning her face toward him. She slid enough in the bed so that he could reach her. He felt like a blind man feeling in the dark for her lips, but when he found them, he kissed her, trying to avoid her cheeks because he didn't want to feel any of the tears he was certain were there.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have brought it up."

"No," she said, "it's not your fault. I mean, it's only natural to talk about it, right? That was life," she said.

"I know," Tyreese said, "but some aspects of that life, like Ed, are better left right where they are. You shouldn't have to think about them anymore."

"But not Sophia," Carol said.

"No, not Sophia," Tyreese said. "Though I do wish that somehow she wasn't so tangled up in Ed's memory."

Carol mumbled something and Tyreese wrapped his arm around her again.

"I wouldn't have changed anything about her," Carol said, "not even that she was Ed's child, but I do wish that I'd have left him. She would have had a better life if I'd have been brave enough to leave him."

Tyreese rubbed her arm.

"Don't start that either," Tyreese said. "You did what you thought was best and you did what you thought you could do. I'm not blaming you for it, Sophia never blamed you for it, and so you might as well not keep yourself up blaming yourself for it."

"I guess you're right," Carol said. She sighed.

"When it comes to you," Tyreese said, "I'm always right. Now get some sleep."

"You too," Carol said.

"I will," Tyreese responded. He knew that he'd get more sleep than she did, even though he was more than certain now that he'd be awake within a matter of hours talking her out of every bad thought that had decided to invade her sleeping mind. "I love you, Carol."

"Love you too, Tyreese," Carol said.

Tyreese tightened his grip on her just a little and shifted as she shifted, attempting to get them both settled and the cover over both of them. For the moment, everything in the house was quiet and he knew that they'd better try to get to sleep before the littlest Dixon decided to wake the household again.