AN: So, this is a bit of a transition chapter to set the stage for the fact that we're obviously working to get the homestead set up. I'll be showing some moments/events/etc. from all of this, but I won't be doing the entire play-by-play. There will be, then, some small time jumps that take place in between some of the scenes of future chapters.

I hope you enjoy the chapter! Please don't forget to let me know what you think!

111

The morning after their decision to make a home on the chosen plot, they met in Alice and Melodye's kitchen to plan over a communal breakfast. The list of things they wanted and needed to accomplish was daunting when they scratched it all out on a grocery-list pad that they found in a junk drawer. It was especially daunting when they considered how many hands they actually brought to the table.

Still, Daryl felt a sense of hope and confidence that he'd never felt before. They could do this. They could build this. They could make this home what they all wanted, and they could live there, in peace.

"Do you think we'll need more people?" Lydia asked while working with Daryl and Alice to disassemble the greenhouse they'd found on a different property so that they could move it back—using three of their wagons to take all the pieces at once—to their plot. Muh had come with them, but her job was to search the house and pack a fourth wagon with everything she could possibly clear out of there that might be even remotely useful.

"It couldn't hurt," Alice said. "If they're good people."

"Yeah—but that shit can hurt plenty if they ain't," Daryl said. "I'd rather not deal with 'em than take my chances that they go and fuck up what the hell we got."

"What if we can't get it all done?" Lydia asked.

"That's why the hell we prioritize," Daryl said. "Divide and conquer. Most important things first. What doesn't get done'll keep until spring."

"But what if…?"

Daryl stopped Lydia. He caught her shoulder. He squeezed it. He ducked his head enough to catch her eyes, and held them.

"We'll get everything we need to get done finished up in time to survive the winter," he assured her. "The rest is details. We'll get it done when we get it done. But—we'll be safe. Comfortable, even. All of us."

Lydia stared at him, hard, and finally she nodded. She didn't look entirely convinced, and her eyes drifted toward Alice. Daryl wasn't offended by her need to have a touch more reassurance. She had had one night of being a family, in a home, and she was terrified to lose it. Daryl understood. He felt the same way, even though he knew that she needed his strength.

Alice, luckily, didn't miss a beat.

"Yeah—hell yeah. We'll be safe and…good, you know? Right now, everyone's working. We'll have this back together before you know it. Fences and everything. The rest—we'll figure it out. We're all pretty much experts at that, right?"

Lydia gave her a tight-lipped smile. She wasn't entirely certain she agreed, but she was more certain than she had been.

"This'll grow food all winter," she said, as a way of responding to the discussion.

Daryl swallowed back his amusement.

"It will," he said. "And that boy of theirs? You just tell him that you don't want to miss a meal, and he'll pack those smoke houses we're going to build full of meat."

Lydia's cheeks blushed pink.

"His name is Beau, Daryl," she said.

Daryl laughed quietly.

"Believe me, I know it is," he said. "Come on—let's get the rest of this apart."

111

"You're not gonna be able to move tomorrow," Daryl said.

"I can hardly move tonight," Carol said with a laugh. "Oh—thank you, Pookie."

The nickname made Daryl's face burn warm, but he accepted the affection behind it as he poured the water that he'd brought from the fire in the living room fireplace into the metal tub and warmed her bath.

Regardless of their declarations that everyone should stick together, and nobody should go off on their own, it appeared that people in their newly forming family weren't very good at listening and were going to do what they damn well pleased. Beau, insisting that he'd been off on his own more than he'd been stuck up under anyone, had gone hunting in the surrounding areas for meat and, more than that, for any signs of the livestock that they hoped to round up and re-domesticate—livestock that they knew had to have been released from the farms and ranches around them. There was a good chance many of the animals had been killed and died from age and exposure, but Daryl felt sure that some had survived and continued to procreate—and those would be the hardier stock, at any rate.

Muh had promised that she was only going foraging—the little wagon she used was, she said, only for her mobility and for the ease of carrying things—but when she'd come back, it was evident that she'd been doing a little more hardcore "foraging" than they'd all imagined when they'd released her to do her own thing.

The three large, galvanized tubs that she'd managed to scrounge—one for each household—weren't large enough for luxurious soaking in the tub, but they would do well enough for bathing purposes with a little minor soaking to be had.

When they'd asked Muh how she'd managed to load the tubs—which were, of course, manageable, but still awkward for one particularly short person to carry and load—she'd simply shrugged and, apparently, decided not to answer that question any further. The only response she'd given to any of their questions was that she'd found a great many things for which they should return—having only been able to fit so much in her cart, and having had certain things in mind—and she'd also found some of the livestock that they hoped to gather.

Carol and Sadie had assigned themselves the job of digging post holes for fencing that would go all the way around their chosen land—a job that would take several days, at least—and they'd both dug holes like their lives depended on it. At the same time, Alice and Lydia had worked on putting the greenhouse back together, both claiming they remembered pretty well how it had come apart, and Daryl had joined Melodye in the search for materials and in the quick construction of temporary pens that could begin to hold their livestock until they were able to build something more lasting.

They had all worked solidly until supper, and then they'd all eaten with well-earned gusto. Hardly anyone had spoken until plates were cleaned of food and everyone was forced to simply sit back for a moment—this time all gathered around the dining table at the house that Sadie and Muh would share—and let their food digest enough to find the energy to move and clean.

Now, they were resting, all in their respective homes, with what was left of the evening. In the morning, they'd start to work again—each of them doing something to contribute to the building of everything they wanted.

Daryl pulled up a stool next to the tub where Carol sat washing herself in the warm water.

"More hot water?" He asked.

"This is fine," Carol said. "Thank you."

She sighed. It was the contented kind of sigh that said she was tired, but satisfied with the day. Daryl was grateful for the contentment that all of them were feeling, of course, but he was mostly happy for her. Her contentment, it seemed, brought him more happiness than anything else possibly could.

"Want me to wash your back?" He asked.

She looked at him a moment, smiled, and then handed him the washcloth. He took up the cake of soap that she'd put on the saucer they'd put on the floor by the tub—their solution to not having a place to put it while they bathed. He lathered the rag up and used it to wash her back. He spent more time soaping her skin than was necessary, but she didn't complain. She didn't complain, either, when he brought the rag around to wash her breasts. They were already clean, but he wanted to wash them, and she didn't deny him that. She didn't deny him, either, when he dared to rinse them and, for no reason at all, to cup one of them and feel the heft of it in his hand. Her nipple pressed into his palm as it grew hard beneath his touch.

She laughed quietly at him, and he ducked his head to kiss her, his hand still holding her breast. She swirled her tongue around his mouth and licked his top lip as the kiss broke. He laughed in response, and she echoed it.

"You know," Daryl said, "you could—get out of that tub and…I could give you a back rub. A good massage might help loosen things up."

Daryl felt himself blush, but the rest of his body was warm, too, so his face might as well have been. Carol blushed, too.

"I bet you'd be interested in…loosening up a lot of things for me," she teased.

"Only what you want," Daryl said. "You call the shots. You know that."

Carol hummed at him.

"I hate to get sweaty after a such a good bath," she said. "But—for an offer like that, I think I could make an exception."

Daryl shrugged his shoulders.

"You're just gonna get sweaty again tomorrow," he said. "Might as well go ahead and accept it's just part of life until we get all this done."

"You mean—I'll get sweaty with the working every day or…after my bath every day?" Carol asked, amused. She took the rag and, swirling it in the tub, half-heartedly washed at already clean parts of her body.

"Both," Daryl said. "If you want. If it makes you happy. Sweaty from workin' all day…"

"Sweaty from loving at night?" Carol teased.

"Or in the morning," Daryl said with a shrug.

"I have to pick one or the other?" Carol asked.

"Not every day," Daryl said, laughing quietly. "Could be both. Sometimes, at least. Guess it depends on how long our stamina holds out with all we'll be doin'."

Carol hummed softly and thoughtfully. She studied the water as she swirled the rag across its surface.

"The promise is enough, really."

"The anticipation?"

Carol looked at him, then, and raised her eyebrows.

"That, too," she said.

Daryl leaned and kissed her again. Her kiss was sweet, but there was a hunger there that practically curled Daryl's toes. His hair was drying after his own bath, but her hands came to his face—and to the back of his head—streaming water and wetting him, again, in the process. He didn't mind. He would dry from her bathwater just the same as both of them would dry from the sweat they would, with any luck, be creating between them soon.

"You 'bout done with your bath, woman?" Daryl asked when the kiss broke.

Carol smirked at him.

"Might as well save what's left of the candle," she said. "But—I think you're forgetting something."

"Hmmm?" Daryl hummed.

"You promised—our daughter—a little family time," Carol said.

"Shit," Daryl said. He laughed. "I did, didn't I?"

"You did," Carol said.

"Fine," Daryl said. "I'll wash the tub out. You go—get somethin' set up."

"Any requests?" Carol asked.

"Go Fish or—or somethin' like that," Daryl said. "Not no damn Monopoly. We ain't got that long if we're all gonna be rested up for tomorrow and you an' me's gonna get some time in, too."

"Don't try to cheat her out of her time," Carol said, half-teasing.

"Two games of Go Fish," Daryl said. "Then, we send her to her room to play or—read a book or somethin'…and we go to our room to play hide-the-sausage."

"You are ever the romantic," Carol teased. "Did you know that?"

"That's what the hell you signed on for when you married me," Daryl said. "Regrets?"

She was smiling sincerely enough that he already knew her answer.

"Not a single one," she assured him, taking his hand as he offered it to her to help her step out of the tub.

"Yeah," Daryl agreed. "Me neither."