A/N: Talk of abortion and friendship.

Daryl opened the door to their room, expecting to see Michonne. He'd let her alone most of the day, especially after the look she gave him after not lettin' her have coffee. He knew he'd put his life in danger tellin' her no to coffee. They just got used to havin' it again. Not seein' her, he felt safe to go inside. He checked his clothes and didn't see anything tore up. Another good sign. He snorted. 'Chonne wouldn't tear his clothes up, she'd tear his ass up.

He saw her katana was on the mantle and laid on the bed, lookin' at it. His baby. She was pregnant. He knew Rand would be okay with it. Hell, they all would. It was 'Chonne he was worried about. Daryl knew it was selfish, but he hoped Michonne decided to have him or her. He didn't care if it was a girl or a boy. He'd teach them everythin' they'd need to know to survive this bullshit.

He set the alarm and fell asleep dreamin' of his baby. Maybe two. Him and Michonne with their own family. It wouldn't be 'Leave It to Beaver' with walkers. It'd be better.

Rand looked up when Michonne sat in her chair in the office. "What's up?" she asked as she shut down the laptop. She hated doing schedules.

"I'm pregnant."

She raised her eyebrows. "Okay. Congratulations."

Michonne frowned.

"What?" Rand frowned now.

"That's it?"

"Isn't that the acceptable form of acknowledgment?"

The woman rolled her eyes. Then they got teary. "Should I?"

She shifted in her seat. "Should you what? Have the baby? It's your decision, Michonne. Yours and Daryl's. Did you want me to find pills for an abortion? I don't think we have those. Not a biggie. I'll get some for you."

"I don't know what to do," Michonne whispered.

Rand let out a breath. "Look, Michonne, we're not friends."

"I think we're friends," she shot back.

She narrowed her eyes at Michonne. "Alright. We're friends."

"Don't you think we're friends?"

Rand shook her head. "This conversation should be about you and your news, but I'm hijacking it. I've never had friends. I've always been too smart, too tomboy, too bitchy, too cold and a whole host of other pejorative terms. I wouldn't know what to do with a friend. Colleagues? Acquaintances? No problem."

"You've never had friends?" Michonne's mouth dropped open.

"No. Neither here nor there." She sat back in her chair. "What is it you want from me?"

"I'd like you to. You know what? Never mind. I'll let you know about the pills." Michonne stood up and headed for the door.

"Son of a bitch," she muttered. "Stop for a minute." Michonne froze but didn't turn. "Please. Sit down."

She moved, stiffly, to the chair and sat down, face blank.

"Friends. That word, it has different meanings for different people. I thought I had friends when I was younger. It turns out I…didn't. If it means anything to you I trust you. Not something I do easily. People are dicks. There were dicks before. Now, it's." She huffed out a breath. "It's different. So. I understand friends talk to each other. If you trust me with personal information I won't blab about it to anyone. If that's a definition of 'friend' you can live with, I can, too."

She refused to shift in her chair again when Michonne stared at her. "I don't know what to do."

"Do you want the baby?"

"I just said I don't."

"No. I asked what you want. If you want to continue the pregnancy, I'm sure we have shit around here. I'll look myself if you don't want Tom to know."

"I don't know," she repeated.

"Damn, this is like pulling teeth," she grumbled. "Let's do an analysis." She pulled out a legal tablet and grabbed a pen. "We'll do pros and cons."

"That's it?" she raised her voice.

"Michonne, I'm not stupid. I understand, from colleagues in my last life, how hard it was to have a baby. Now? I'm sure it's a lot scarier. We have a somewhat secure place to stay. We don't have a real doctor. That could be considered a con. We don't have hospital, just a souped up clinic. We have food. We have good people. We have a backup place. We can do a run to hospital and a medical college for books."

"Daryl wants you to go to Atlanta. We had some people from our old group that were being held hostage in a hospital. They had a doctor," she muttered.

"We can do that to if it makes you and Daryl sleep easier," Rand offered.

"I'm…scared," Michonne admitted in a quiet voice.

"I'm not surprised. We'll do what we can to help you and Daryl. It does take a village to raise a child now. I can't guarantee anything. I'll try my hardest to make sure nothing happens, but shit happens now. It always did, but walkers are relatively new and dicks are plentiful." She stared at her 'friend'. "Do you love Daryl? I'm assuming he's the father."

"Yes and yes."

"Does he love you? You know what? That's a stupid question. Dominic's lucky he hasn't been thrown in the moat," she laughed. "The man is head over heels."

"How do you know?"

"Not much gets by me, Michonne. He's not romcom about it, good thing, that crap makes my stomach hurt, but he does love you." Rand moved the tablet and put her elbows on the desk. "I told you before I thought you were a good team. This baby, if you choose to have it, will have good parents. Good aunts and uncles."

"Seth, Waya and Adrian?"

"Yep. Tsula. Jenny. Bradford. Jake. Helen. Janet. Mark. We've been through some shit, all of us. It's a good place to have a baby. But if you don't want to have the baby? You don't have to. I'll go find some pills or a doctor."

"What would you do?"

Michonne's question put her on the spot. "I…don't know. I've been pregnant twice and chose abortion. I'm always, have always, been diligent regarding birth control, but I like sex and birth control is not one hundred percent. I've, also, never been in a 'real' relationship," she admitted.

"Now you have three men," she pointed out.

"Maybe," Rand shrugged. "Now, sure. Later? Maybe not. We're getting off track. I don't know. This is. Um. I don't know. You and Daryl are in a 'real' relationship. If you love each other, are committed to each other, I'd say your odds aren't any different than before this started." She sat back. "I say go for it. Daryl, I think, would be a good father."

Rand started to get worried as Michonne sat there and stared. "What is it you're doing with Seth, Waya and Adrian?" she questioned.

"Shit." She put her head on the desk. "I'm…not sure."

After a few minutes of silence Rand sat up and rolled her eyes again. Michonne raised an eyebrow. "Sue me. I guess we're friends. We're not fuck buddies. I don't think."

"You're not," the woman snapped. "I." She paused. "As…unusual as your relationship is, you're not fuck buddies. You're not the only one that sees things, Rand. You're willfully blind and you know it," Michonne pinned her with a glare. "Do you talk to them? About things other than Castle business?"

She snorted. "Sure. Tsula. Jenny. You and Daryl," she grinned evilly.

"Anything else?"

"Book, movies, plays. Our previous lives, occasionally. Wait," she raised her eyebrows. "What do you and Daryl talk about?"

"Castle business. Our days. Our previous lives. The four of you, sometimes. Daryl thinks it's funny when you say you don't think things out well. Except for the sword thing the first time. That wasn't funny." Michonne smirked.

She laughed a little. "No. That wasn't funny," she admitted. "Yeah, we talk."

"So they're your friends and your lovers."

Rand sighed. "I guess. I trust them. I trust you. I trust Daryl. Jenny. Tsula. I trust Tom and Mark."

Michonne nodded. "I had friends before. I haven't had many after. I thought I did. I didn't." She stood up. "I do now. Thank you for being my friend."

Rand lowered her eyebrows. "I didn't do shit."

"You did. You do. I don't need the pills. A doctor? We could use one. Ray's good, but real doctor, I think, would take the pressure off of him. We had a vet at the prison."

"Hm. A vet. How did it work out?"

"He was a good man."

"What hospital?" Rand asked before Michonne made it to the door.

"I don't know. Daryl does," she answered. "I'll have him find you."

"Okay."

Helen looked in satisfaction at the four sets of dishes she'd placed on one of the round tables. This was one of the ones away from the regular dining room tables they used for meals. Tom, bless his heart, had made up a menu and left them near the plates. She looked up when Rand, Michonne and Janet walked in the dining room.

"Helen?" Rand narrowed her eyes at the table.

"I thought I'd invite you to lunch," she smiled.

"Why?"

Helen sighed. "A few days ago I was looking for you in the office. You and Michonne were talking. I didn't hear most of the conversation," she proffered quickly. "But what I did hear made me…think. You told Michonne you weren't friends. It took me by surprise because I thought you were friends. I thought we were friends. You said you'd never had friends because you were too smart, too bitchy, too tomboy or too cold. I left. But the conversation made me think. This? This is…fucked up. This is a fucked up situation." She almost laughed at the look of surprise Rand and Michonne had on their faces. She never cursed. "I've heard Daryl say we have a home with good people. We do. We have food. We have weapons. I'd like to keep some of those ridiculous rituals we used to have, like lunch with friends."

Michonne watched Rand as she looked between the table and Helen. Who was right. They needed some of those ridiculous rituals. Janet immediately sat down, pulled the napkin from under the silverware and put it across her lap before picking up the menu. Rand's eyebrows rose as she looked at Janet, the table, Helen then her. She seemed to come to some sort of conclusion before taking the seat across from Janet. Helen almost sagged with relief before she nodded her head toward the table. Michonne smiled a little and sat at Rand's right.

"Alright, Helen. This is your show," Rand acquiesced.

Helen laughed. "Good. Now, Tom made a small menu for us." She poured water from the pitcher into the glasses. "Before, my women friends and I would meet for lunches or dinners and talk about our lives."

Michonne knew. She'd done the same thing and judging from the look on Janet's face, she had, too.

"We know our lives now. If you're comfortable, I'd like to talk about our lives before." Helen sipped her water. "Just what you'd like to share. For the record, I don't think you're too bitchy, cold or a tomboy. I do think you're smart and determined, Rand, and I'm glad we took a chance on Daryl and Michonne."

Michonne took that as a cue. "What did you do before this?"

Janet sipped her own water and put down the menu, staring hard at Rand. "I'd be interested in hearing that."

"I'm not that interesting," Rand responded.

The look of relief on the woman's face when Tom walked over and asked for their orders made her laugh. "You're not off the hook, Rand," Janet smirked before she turned to Tom.

"What'd you do? Before this?" Daryl asked Rand. They were on the overpass, just them, doing night watch. After 'Chonne said she'd talked to Rand about the baby and she'd be open to goin' to Atlanta for that asshole doctor, he'd headed straight for the office. He'd given her the name and the few details about the hospital he could remember from Noah and Carol. She and the stooges had left two days later.

"Didn't Michonne tell you?"

"Nah. She said those lunches are 'girl time' whatever the hell that means. If I wanna know I gotta ask," he grumbled.

"Are you sure you want to know?"

"Asked, didn't I?"

"Do you remember the first night I met you? I said you should be careful of the questions you ask as you may not like the answers," she reminded him.

He remembered. Now he did want to know. He knew some about Waya, Tsula, Seth and Adrian. More about Tom and Mark. Jenny. He knew about 'Chonne just like she knew about him. "Well?" he pressed a few minutes later.

She hummed a noise. "Okay. I was an astronomer."

He huffed out a laugh. "Are you shittin' me? An astronomer? Like lookin' at the stars and shit?"

"Looking at the stars and shit." Daryl heard her sigh.

"You gotta know them other languages? To be an astronomer?"

"No."

"Then why?"

She leaned against the brick railing. "I was one of those annoying overachiever kids in school. Honor roll, the debate team, the chess team, sports, you name it. I got my PhD when I was twenty-five."

"Cheerleader?"

"Hell no. I thought cheerleading was stupid."

"Karate?"

"Ah. Now you're delving into family history. My mom, before she had me, tried out, twice, for the Olympic karate team. She didn't make the cut either time. Instead of mommy daughter salon days we had mommy daughter karate days. I know other martial arts, not just karate."

"The guns?"

"My father had been a lieutenant in the Marines. He had me field stripping weapons when I was ten. Every summer he put me through boot camp, whether he was around or not. He'd take us out camping, me and my mom, off the grid, so to speak. Hunting, fishing, living off the land. He thought it was important we know how to take care of ourselves." She cleared her throat.

His parents had been assholes. "Were you..." He didn't finish the question.

"No. They died in a car accident the year I got my doctorate. Disappointed?"

"Fuck. I thought you were a spy or somethin'."

She laughed. "No. Not a spy. Just boring Dr. Rand."

"Right," he drawled.

"I was. Am. I went to school. I studied. I worked. I didn't have any friends. I liked it that way." She sighed again.

"You always want to be one?"

"An astronomer? No. I wanted to be an astronaut, but by the time I was old enough the program had been eviscerated. I didn't have enough of anything. Education. Military experience. Research experience. This was the next best thing."

He couldn't relate. He thought he'd follow Merle's dumb ass around, knock up some woman, have a coupla kids, drink and do nothin' with his life.

"I have friends now, though," she said softly. "Ironic. I have friends."

Daryl shifted on his feet.

"Now it's my turn," she warned.

"Uh," he stuttered.

"Turnabout and all that."

Daryl accepted she did answer his questions so he should answer hers. "Alright."

"Are you and Michonne together?"

He was shocked. He thought she'd ask about what 'Chonne called their 'previous lives', like he'd asked about hers. "We're havin' a baby, yeah, I think we're together," he muttered.

She was quiet for a bit. "You're right. You're together. For what it's worth I think this baby will make it."

"Thanks. I guess," he told her.

"Do you like it here? With me? Following me?"

"You're smart."

"Not answering the question, Daryl. Be honest."

He looked at nothin' in the dark. He heard animals in the woods and some of the watch in the castle. It was different from the prison or the camp or the farm. He'd hated Alexandria. Him and 'Chonne didn't hafta go out on runs. He was fine bein' here. He didn't feel caged or like they needed somethin' to survive or like he was a freak. Him and 'Chonne had food when they wanted, could come and go when they wanted. Hell, all them people they brought back had been out there. Gone through what he did? Some of it. Losin' their places to walkers. Some lost their places to dicks.

"Yeah."

"Thank you."

"Why you thankin' me? Good place here."

"It means a lot. You know, I would have followed you and Michonne."

He twitched. He'd never wanted to be in charge. He didn't mind the advisor shit, like he'd told Rand in the beginnin' or watchin' over the place if they was gone. The rest? "Nah. Never wanted to be in charge."

Michonne was going through one of the storage areas. They had a lot of shit. Sometimes she forgot how much they did have. She seemed to recall… "Yes," she whispered to herself as she pulled out the stand. When they'd grabbed everything from the department store she'd seen Daryl eye the thing. She didn't know what it was at the time. Michonne had to ask him why he was interested in it. He'd shrugged and told her it was to hold a crossbow.

Ever since she'd told him she wanted to have the baby he'd been a pain in her ass. No coffee. No night watch. No heavy lifting. No runs. If he saw her out here he'd have a fit. She was pregnant, not useless. Rand, the bitch, agreed with Daryl's restrictions. She'd forgone coffee when she'd been pregnant with Andre. She could do it again.

She was sure she was smiling like a loon as she put the stand beside her katana before moving it behind her sword. Stepping back she tilted her head a little. She moved the stand a tad to the right. "Perfect." She rubbed her slightly rounded stomach. "You're daddy, baby, he's a pain in the ass, but he loves us," she crooned as she put his crossbow up. Michonne was certain of it. "We're going to have a good life here. A good life. You'll grow up with people that love you."

She went and laid down on the bed, staring at a symbol of her life. Her katana in front of his crossbow. She should have known Daryl loved her when he left those holders on her mantle.

Daryl was quiet as he stepped inside the room not knowin' if she was sleepin' or not. He tried not to treat her different, but she was pregnant with his baby. He knew she was mad about the coffee. The runs. They didn't need nothin' anyway. Heavy liftin'. They weren't takin' down no more trees or puttin' up fences and walls. Seeing she was in bed he took off his clothes and got in beside her. He smiled when Michonne snuggled into him. He kissed her head and looked at the mantle. It had become a habit. She was here with him, livin'. He liked the reminder. The sight of his crossbow behind her katana was…He had a lump in his throat. "Thank you, Michonne," he whispered in her hair. "I love you." He fell asleep rubbing her stomach.