Daryl showed up on Carol's door step the next morning before work offering an apology, he though about bringing flowers but he knew she would probably beat him with them. Or throw them back in his face. So he showed up with diapers, wipes and a voucher for a massage at the local beauty place. It had been Andrea's idea but she wasn't going to blab, she told him no for the flowers. He decided from now on he would ask advice from his sister in law before making any big decision about anything major, she's a chick, she must know what other chicks wanted.

Her door was locked and he knocked, he was bummed waiting he needed to get to work, his pager was going off, but he decided to ignore it until he seen her. He just needed to get through to her he was the biggest dumb arse ever and he would do anything for her forgiveness even grovelling on his knees he was missing her that badly. She hadn't answered the phone or his text messages, he knew she must be mad as hell at him.

He knocked again, he knew she was in there he could hear Sophia. 'Baby, I know your in there, I'm not going till you open the door,'

He waited for her to come, he tried his key the chain was on the door. He couldn't open it. Eventually she come to the door, he could tell she been crying. Her eyes were red rimmed like she'd been crying for hours, her boobs were massive and she was gripping the door. She opened the door a little more and looked at the ground.

'I'm sorry, I was a dick,' Daryl told her, it wasn't what he was supposed to say, he held out the envelope and the diapers. 'I'm going look after her, if you make an appointment for when I'm not working,... I can change a few diapers too,'

She stared at him, 'Thanks,' she told him when she looked in the envelope. She threw the diapers onto the couch. 'I'm not ready to talk, I'm still mad at you, ...you should go.' her words were telling him something her eyes were not. He was watching her all his cue's were coming from her body. Something was off, he didn't know if it was just because of him or something else.

'It won't happen again,' he promised her, 'I don't normally drink like that, just a few beers that's all, I'm not going to offer you excuses,' he moved slightly trying to see past her shoulder, he could see Sophia's toys all over the floor and a lamp on the floor. There were 4 glasses on the bench and breakfast food spill on the ground. Spilt food was giving him warning signs plus the glasses on the bench there should only be one, and Carol always put her's in the sink and made him do it to get into the habit so when Sophia was toddling she wouldn't tip them down on her or break them and get cut.

'Well don't,' Carol went to shut the door, he put his foot in the door. His police skills were honing in on her, something wasn't quite right. He didn't know what, his pager was going off. His cell phone started ringing.

'What's going on?' he asked her, she shook her head.

'I just don't want talk,' she told him, she looked at him, her eyes were expressionless, flat. 'Not right now, I need to figure some things out, decide if your the one for me or not, ...if...if your actually someone I would want to have around my infant daughter or not!'

'Like what?' he asked her, he knew she was lying, even if they were not together he knew she trusted him 100% with Sophia. In fact he was in the process of figuring out how to adopt her through the lawyers to be her Daddy legally. They already called him Daddy to Sophia.

'Just stuff, look I can't talk right now,' she told him.

'Is someone here?' he mouthed She shook her head and flicked her eyes to behind the door. He knew there was, he looked at her hands she had three fingers showing. She indicated one behind the door.

' I just don't think we should see each other anymore, I made a mistake, a big one,' her hands were shaking, 'You better go, there might be some big police emergency you need to be on or something.'

His eyes went to her hands again, which were still holding the voucher, her hands were shaking worse now, he could hear Sophia crying in the bedroom in the flat, a glance over his shoulder he could see a police cruiser park up the road. He could see past her shoulder watching armed defenders jumping the back fence. He ignored his pager again.

'Yeah I'll go, but I wanna give Sophia a kiss first ok,... Goodbye,... if its over, you owe me that,' he told her, he gave her a look. Then I'll go. Out the side of his eyes he could see guys comando crawling up the foot path's from both directions. He knew the street was blocked off. He just didn't know who was in the house.

'She's trying to sleep,'

'I'm not going till I can give her a kiss,' he told her, holding her eyes, she pushed the door shut going inside. 20 seconds later she arrived with Sophia. 20 seconds was all it took for two armed defenders to be standing either side of the front door, with their backs to the wall that even Carol couldn't see them. Sophia was soiled and looked like she'd been screaming for hours, Carol was holding her tight. The little baby was screaming.

'Let me kiss her... Carol, if your ending this, let me kiss Sophia, ' he was nodding pleading her to hand her to him, to trust him.

Carol held her out and Daryl grabbed, tucked her head in with his elbow and dove and rolled left with her under the window, one of the armed men grabbed Carol the moment she handed the baby over rolling with her in the other direction. There was smashing in the back of the house. Daryl kept rolling with Sophia, protecting his baby with his arms into the neighbours drive where he ran down the road towards a police car. Towards the barriers. When he was safe, he looked. He could see Carol being ushered into the back of a police car, by Rick Grimes, him jumping into the drivers seat. The car leaving, she was gone.

He held the crying Sophia who was crying hard on his chest. He wrapped her in a bullet proof vest, he still didn't know what was going on. There was a lot of shouting. Sophia's cries were loud. He slipped with her into the back of the police car. Hostages clear was sounded. He started to move to get her out of there when everything went wrong.

Then he heard a gun shot, he flopped to his side in the back of the police car, putting Sophia behind the drivers seat and the back seat. He pulled a vest over himself the best he could as bullets went flying in the direction of the car. He then heard rapid fire shots. He put his hands over Sophia's ears making shushing sounds, singing to her as the gun shots fired all around them. Sophia was watching his face humming to her. She was calming down with his dull tone.

He felt burning sting in his arm as two stray bullets come through the front window of the car, he kept humming to Sophia, 'Daddy's ok, he's ok, your ok, Mama's ok, I'm gona kill who ever fucken shot Daddy, ...yes I am Sophia, some numb nut just shot me, ...cos it hurts like a bitch, ...don't tell Mama Daddy's saying swear words will you Soph,' He could feel the blood trickling down behind the bullet proof vest, it felt like a lot, he hoped it didn't nick anything important. He wanted to vomit.

He took his hands off Sophia and tried to put pressure on his arm. He was in a lot of pain. His chest was sore, he'd been hit hard there by the other bullet. The vest saved him.

'I'm ok Soph, we're ok, Uncle Rick's got Mama's, Daddy's ok...' he shut his eyes for a moment, there was no more shots.

'CLEAR!'

'CLEAR!"

He heard the calls of people calling off it sounded a long way off. Shane opened the back of the cop car looking in seeing the blood. 'Fuck you get hit? We need an Ambulance... OFFICER DOWN!'