Go to sleep, yeah ok, thought Carol. She dozed until morning and Daryl still hadn't come back. Sophia was awake and Carol decided to take a bath with her to try settle her own nerves. No news was good news, she muttered to herself. Filling the bath and taking both phones with her still nothing was coming through.
She spent as long as Sophia would allow her in the bath. It was still early she had a couple of hours until she had agreed to meet Lori to go to a coffee group with the babies. She got Sophia dressed, fed her then tucked her into her pram to sleep in case she was still awake.
She sat and ate breakfast her gut churning. In the end she rung Lori to see if they were still meeting. Lori was postive on the phone that no news had come through. Leave a note at home, usually Rick would ring her at some stage. They should still go out for a coffee.
Reluctantly Carol met Lori outside the town centre hall rooms where different groups held meetings and once a week the local mothers come with their babies and kids for a coffee. Carol was experiencing extreme panic when she went inside pleased to have Lori with her.
Some of the women were delightful looking into the pram praising Sophia how cute she was and some were giving her looks up and down. Carol checked to make sure she wasn't wearing stained clothes, but she was wearing a pretty top and jeans. Nothing that warranted people to stare at her.
Lori was popular with everyone and knocked the questions off about Carol at the ask, staying by her side the whole morning. Everyone seemed to want to know if Sophia was Daryl's baby, that was the question asked. Carol couldn't believe people were so rude just to ask outright about it. It was none of their business. A couple had heard about Ed, Carol kept steering conversations towards feeding and sleeping.
Carol finally relaxed into a chair to feed Sophia and enter into a conversation about babies that didn't include questions of was she dating Daryl Dixon. She rolled her eyes at Lori about everything that that morning had said. She was relaxed because she got a text from Daryl asking where she was and she could text back.
She was burping Sophia when the doors to the rooms opened, everyone looked to see who it was, Rick and Daryl entered looking a little rough but showered and changed. Carol did an involentry gasp when she saw Daryl's face was sporting a split lip and a black eye. Rick had a egg shaped bruise on his head. They hovered just inside the door, Daryl gave her a nod to indicate she should come to him, he wasn't about to walk into the room of cackling women.
Taking Sophia with her she keep her eyes on his and walked up flush to his body, he put his arm around her and guided them out to the hall.
'Its just a black eye, its nothing,' he whispered well aware people might be listening to them. Rick had wandered down the hall with Lori, clearly something was amiss. 'One of the guys has been shot pretty bad,'
'Oh God,' Carol said, not really knowing what to say.
'Just done all the paper work, you finished here?' Daryl looked at his watch, it was past lunch time, the coffee group had gone over, he looked down the hall at Rick, 'I'm gona walk with Carol,' He took Sophia leaving Carol to go inside with Lori to collect their prams and stuff to leave. The room was quiet. The women knew the drill Lori would never spill any information about Rick's job. They didn't ask Carol either.
Carol smiled and told them she looked forward to next week and pushed her empty pram out the door. She found Daryl sitting on a chair talking quietly to Sophia who was smiling away at him, Daryl looked a wreak, he stood up, indicating he wanted to hold Sophia for a while, she nodded ok.
'Was it ok?' Daryl asked her as they walked down the road towards the flat.
'Yes, apart from the 101 questions about you, and you being Soph's Dad or was it Ed or was that why Ed attacked me,' Carol muttered, 'Hopefully they will have more interesting questions next week,'
'You can tell them its me if you wana,' Daryl told her walking along he had Soph in the crook of one arm, he reached out to stop Carol with the other, 'I don't care if you tell them she's mine, I'll file papers saying she's mine if you wana,'
'What if... what if we break up or something? People are going to wonder?' Carol looked at him she was going though all the reasons at one hundred miles per hour in her head. 'If we say she's yours what happens if we split?'
'She's still be mine,' Daryl told her, Carol looked at him not knowing what to say.
'I think you got hit in the head a little, we need to talk about it some more,' She told him, pushing the pram ahead.
'I'm not joking around Carol,' He called after her as he started following her again.
'I know your not joking thats whats freaking me out,'
'You freaking out because its too soon?' Daryl put his hand on the pram to stop it from moving off. Carol nodded. 'How about when she's 6 months, I ask you again?'
'6 months time or when she's 6 months?'
'When Sophia's 6 months,' Daryl told her, Carol nodded, 'Ok lets get home I'm starving and tired,' Carol and Daryl walked side by side the rest of the way home, Daryl carried Sophia the whole way.