AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

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

111

"I think the best thing we can do next is—reinforce those fences," Alice said.

"I think our smartest move is taking those long runs to get supplies," Melodye said. "Look—I'm just saying that we haven't had anything trying to get in the fences, and everything that's tried to get out has failed. Including Buck."

Buck was their big, black bull. He was a pain in the ass, but the service they hoped he'd provide to their cows was worth putting up with his asshole antics. None of them knew much about bulls, honestly, but they figured Buck was probably pretty juvenile—and he acted like it. They could all agree that Buck was an enormous idiot—literally and figuratively. Muh had come up with a way to cork his horns, though, so at least he was a slightly less dangerous asshole than he'd once been.

"I agree with Melodye," Daryl said, stifling a yawn. "If Buck's dumb ass can't get through those fences, they're pretty well secure for now."

"We agreed that we wanted them double thickness," Alice said. "And we wanted Walker spikes—wasn't that what you said really made a difference at your prison or whatever?"

"We've seen maybe a dozen Walkers, if even that, since we got here," Daryl said. "Fences'll hold for a while, but the snow won't hold off forever. I'd rather we make sure we got every damn thing we can store up first. Then, we can fuck around here makin' the fences four times as thick as they are if that's what the hell we wanna do with our time."

It was late. It was later than it usually was when they all split to go in their separate directions for the night. Tomorrow, they'd decided, was an official rest-day for the whole of their little family. People needed some downtime for recovery and for catching their breath. That meant that, tonight, there was no need to rush through anything. Everyone had bathed early, and they'd met for a meal and some recreation time together.

The meal had been heavy and delicious—meat, potatoes, gravy, and canned vegetables that, one day, would be replaced with food that they grew themselves. For a while, they'd played a game like charades with rules that Sadie and Lydia had made up together—rules that seemed to change, at least slightly, any time their little team of two wasn't winning—and everyone had enjoyed themselves simply being silly. Daryl wasn't sure that anyone had actually won the game, but it didn't really matter.

Lydia and Beau were outside—on a walk together—in the moonlight. As a somewhat freshly minted father of a nearly grown girl, Daryl might have found that nerve-wracking, except for the fact that both Beau and Lydia were skittish and, beyond that, he knew that Muh was outside on the porch, keeping watch over the two of them from a distance and drinking her hot nighttime beverage—a thick, almost black root water, tonight, from what Daryl could tell—and smoking her pipe.

Nobody—not even teenagers—were going to try to get froggy with their grandmother watching them.

Sadie had fallen asleep some time ago on the couch, and Carol had dozed off not too long after, the two of them leaning against each other so that they were, at the same time, a pillow for the other. Carol had begun to snore quietly, thanks mostly to the position of her head, but it didn't bother Sadie at all, so both women slept on contentedly. Daryl was feeling pretty tired, himself, and he thought it wouldn't be long before he roused Carol to go back to their house and slip into bed together.

"If you think the fences are safe," Alice said.

The way she left it hanging amused Daryl. He laughed quietly. He sat up, lit a cigarette for himself, and dragged the ashtray on Alice and Melodye's coffee table closer to him.

"You think the fences are safe, too," Daryl said. "You're just so damn freaked out by Walkers that you're scared they gonna somehow get through the fences. And—that's OK. We all got shit that just—well—that just scares the shit outta us."

"I really do hate those things," Alice said. "It's like every fucking nightmare come to life, you know? You expect for someone who's dead to stay dead. That's science. It's a medical fact. I feel like I've spent most of my life having that drilled into my head—being taught to accept that shit. Beyond a certain point of time, at least, the dead stay dead. You call it—time of death—and it's done." She visibly shivered and made a noise as the shiver crawled up her spine.

Alice was good with a lot of things, but like everyone, she had her fair share of weaknesses. She could kill Walkers, and she wouldn't entirely freeze in their presence, but she wasn't the strongest Walker fighter that Daryl had ever known in his life. Her Walker killing ability could best be categorized as "in a pinch, I'll save myself or someone else." She was, as a general rule, better at running than she was at fighting Walkers, and that wasn't saying much for someone who tended to trip over their own shoes on occasion.

Still, none of them really minded that much. She had knowledge and skills that, honestly, Daryl found ten times more valuable than the simple ability to stab a well-rotted Walker through the eyeball without shuddering and, later, retching.

"It's OK, Al," Daryl offered. "Tell you what—I'll be the first damn one to tell you if I think a single damn thing is getting through the fences. And as soon as we get done clearin' out the area, we'll reinforce them, and we'll put up those spikes—and you never have to leave this compound again if you don't want to."

"Have you ever considered being a therapist?" Melodye teased from her spot.

"I couldn't deal with people's bullshit," Daryl said.

"Really—we're all therapists these days," Alice said. "And we all need therapy, so…"

"That's deep, Al," Melodye said with a snort. "So—we're agreed? We start seriously stockpiling?"

Daryl hummed in the affirmative. Alice offered a somewhat weak "yeah" from her spot, but Daryl could tell that she'd be more convinced by the time they were drinking Muh's morning tea offerings and sampling Carol's latest bread turned into breakfast toast.

"Tomorrow, we'll take a little time to work out the logistics," Daryl said. "Who stays, who goes…all that."

"It's not like that's going to take an act of congress," Alice said. She moved to sit on the floor, her legs crossed, in front of the coffee table. She lit a cigarette for herself. "Muh stays."

"Sadie stays," Daryl said.

"Sadie is solid," Melodye offered. "And we don't know what we'll want to move. Besides—she can smell Walkers and animals and things that we can't. It's a pretty decent advanced warning system."

"That's the only damn reason the Walkers don't sneak up on her," Daryl said. "And it only works if it's been kinda clear long enough that she ain't gone noseblind to 'em. Feels like too much of a worry. I don't wanna be feeling like if I focus too hard on what we're doing, we risk losing Sadie. I'd rather she just stayed here and worked. She can handle a lot of the heavy lifting that Muh ain't gonna be able to do for keepin' everything going here."

"Sadie stays," Alice said. "Muh stays."

"Me and Beau go," Daryl said.

"I go," Melodye said. "Al stays."

"Al can go," Alice said. "Mel can stay."

"You oughta stay," Daryl said to Alice.

"I can lift three times what Mel can lift," Alice protested.

"You damn right about that," Daryl said. "If it comes down to brute strength, I want you on my team. The problem is, you can lift it, and you can hold it, but if I need your ass to move it three feet to the right, every damn body's gotta clear out or risk needin' your medical care skills as a result."

Alice laughed.

"You're an asshole," she informed him, as though he were unaware.

"Besides," Daryl said, "I'd rather you stayed here. I sleep better knowin' we have a surgeon on call than I do knowin' you're out there riskin' your neck over supplies that any one of us can throw in the back of a wagon."

"For you fuckers it's just a trip, but for me, I'm risking my neck?" Alice asked.

"You get up for a glass of water and don't light the lamp, you're riskin' your neck," Daryl teased. Alice laughed, and Daryl did, too.

"Fine," Alice said. "I stay. Muh stays. Sadie stays. Carol stays."

"See," Daryl said, pausing to pick a piece of tobacco off his tongue that escaped from the cigarette he was about to light, "I like the way your ass thinks. I do. Because I sure as shit wanna leave Carol here, but…she ain't gonna want to stay. It'd be like tellin' Buck to sit. You can say it, but even as the words are leaving' your mouth, you know that shit ain't gonna happen."

"She organizes everything," Alice said. "And she's damn good at it. Who ought to be doing what, when they ought to be doing it…all that shit. She's the one who knows how to do everything we've been doing to get ready. Like every day is let's go to school with Carol day, and learn what we ought to know to do more than just survive the winter. Tell her that it makes more sense for her to be here organizing everything, and working on everything, and getting everything ready for the winter, than it does for her to be out there putting shit in wagons—which all of you can do."

"You're not wrong, Al," Daryl said. "But Carol's gonna see that shit as—as not contributing enough. She's gonna fight it tooth and nail."

"Then—tell her the damn truth," Alice said. She was purposefully keeping her voice down, just as the rest of them were, so that they didn't wake Carol, but her whispered hiss made it clear that, if her voice were louder, it would be much louder.

For some reason, the words struck Daryl and stuck somewhere in his gut. He stared at Alice, and she stared back at him. Her eyes were dark enough that, especially in this light, she didn't seem to have pupils at all.

"What do you suggest I tell her?" Daryl asked.

Alice laughed quietly and shook her head. She'd been toying with a cigarette from the communal bag she'd placed on the table of already rolled cigarettes, and she finally picked up the nearby lamp and used it to light the cigarette. She took her time taking a draw from it and blowing out the smoke.

"We can pretend for a while, but it won't keep forever," Alice said. "Eventually—someone's going to have to face the elephant in the room."

Daryl's stomach twisted. Part of his brain wanted to protest. It wanted to pretend that he had no idea what Alice was talking about. The other part of his brain did know—it knew all too well. It had been trying to fool itself, to convince itself of its error.

"What'cha talkin' about?" Daryl asked. In an attempt to sound casual, he'd only succeeded in spitting out words in a way that sounded shaky and insincere.

"She knows," Alice said. "We don't think she's accepted it, but she knows. She has to."

"What are you talkin' about, Al?" Daryl asked, sitting up a little straighter in the chair. He looked at Melodye. She was looking at him in a way that he could only describe as "maternal." It looked like she was about to comfort him—she was about to promise him everything would be OK and offer him a lollipop.

"If she needs some help with this," Melodye offered, "or—if you do…"

"Help with," Daryl said. He let it hang. Even though he was about to ask the question, he wasn't dedicated to it. He knew. He absolutely knew. He'd been rejecting that knowledge, perhaps, but it had been an active and purposeful rejection.

Carol was rejecting it. Her rejection, too, was an active and purposeful rejection. Daryl sensed it, even though they certainly hadn't talked about it. He felt, in his gut, that if she wasn't talking about it, it wasn't his place to bring it up. It wasn't his place to make her talk about it. It wasn't his place to bring things to light.

He never finished the question because he didn't mean it—and the only two people who could hear him, at the moment, knew that he didn't mean it.

"You noticed," he said, instead.

"She won't let me touch her with a ten-foot pole," Alice said. "She avoids even getting close to me, lately. She's practically throwing my food at me and trying to be casual about it." She laughed quietly to herself. "But—from a distance? She looks pretty healthy."

"She's stopped rejecting a little extra on her plate at meals," Melodye offered. "I've noticed she's a little quicker to delegate certain tasks or let someone take over something that she maybe shouldn't be doing."

"What if she don't know?" Daryl asked.

"I think—and I haven't talked to her, because I'm not ready to push her, that…she knows," Melodye said. "Maybe she doesn't even know she knows, though."

"That don't make sense," Daryl said. Melodye laughed quietly.

"That's trauma," she said. "It doesn't usually make sense and, yet, it makes perfect sense. Trauma is paradoxical. Besides—you've been rejecting it, too."

Daryl nodded his head.

"What do I do to—help her?" Daryl asked.

"I've never dealt with this level of trauma," Melodye admitted. "The world before—everything I ever read or studied? It never prepared anyone for this. Not the world we live in now. There are so many layers to everything."

"You still know a whole fuckin' ton more than the rest of us," Daryl said. "And if I'm taking advice, which I am more than willing to do right now? I'ma take it from you."

"You're doing the best you can," Melodye said. "In my opinion—you're doing the best thing you can do. You're not pushing her. You're letting her handle things at her speed."

"Which will work out great until the baby's born," Alice said. "If she hasn't come to terms with it by then, it's going to be a bit of whirlwind getting everything to smoothly fall into place."

"I don't think it's going to be that dramatic, Al," Melodye said, rolling her eyes at her partner.

Daryl's stomach churned. It had finally been said out loud. Granted, only the three of them were actively part of the conversation, but it was out. The part of Daryl that had been trying to reject his suspicion made him feel a bit shaky as it settled into reality.

"How long do you think we got?" He asked.

"You'd know better than we would," Alice said, "but I'd say she's starting to fill out a little. There's a little tummy there—but that can come earlier if you've already carried a baby before."

"There's a little there," Daryl admitted. "Just a little bit, though. Like—big meal or whatever."

"Easy to ignore. Easy to pass off as something else. We've got time," Alice said. "It might come in the winter—maybe even spring, depending on how long the cold lasts here and what fucking month it actually is."

"It's important not to push things," Melodye said. "Just—give it time to see how Carol works things out on her own."

"One day at a time," Daryl said. "It's the way we've been takin' everything."

"And everything happens one day at a time," Melodye said.

"So—tomorrow's another day," Daryl said. "How the hell do I convince Carol that the best place for her to stay is right here, without so much as touchin' this reason?"

Melodye smiled at him.

"You tell her the truth. She's needed here. She's the best person we've got for making sure that we're all prepared for the winter. It's smart to leave her working on what only she can do. Besides—just point out that Sadie and Muh are going to need her to help keep Alice in line."

Meloyde winked at Alice, and Daryl laughed to himself.

"Fine," he said, "but I'm counting on you to help me convince her. And to help keep a secret."

"You've got my word," Melodye said. "My lips are sealed."

"Alice?" Daryl asked.

"I won't say shit," she said. "But—if I demand that every damn body subject themselves to a physical for the good of the whole group, your ass better play along."

"You got my unendin' support," Daryl teased. "Shit—it's late. I better…get her to bed and…figure out where the hell Lydia is."

"Don't worry about Lydia," Alice teased. "Muh's got her eye on her—and Beau wouldn't dare do anything to get Muh after him."

"All the same," Daryl said, "I think I'ma tell my little girl it's time to turn into a pumpkin 'fore your son gets any ideas about corruptin' her."

Both Alice and Melodye stood up like they meant to see him out when he roused Carol and Sadie to suggest that everyone start heading to bed in their proper homes.

"You just make sure your daughter doesn't corrupt our innocent little boy," Alice teased. "We've worked hard to make him as good as he is."

Daryl laughed to himself and stretched. He walked slowly toward the couch where Carol and Sadie were sleeping.

"And you done a damn fine job of it," he ceded. "Won't mind havin' him as a son-in-law. Just—looking to put that shit off for a while."

111

AN: So—you wanna hear a story about how I have good intentions but suck at following through with them?

I was informed that people don't review/comment frequently because they don't get responses for their reviews, and that makes them feel unappreciated as readers. I know that there are people who are practically professionals at responding to everything all the time. I certainly don't want people to feel unappreciated.

I meant to answer everyone's reviews forever and ever, but I found out, very, very quickly, that I just can't. My sometimes-scrambled brain can't handle it. I value and love every review I get. The knowledge that you're reading and enjoying keeps me publishing chapters. I even save the best ones in a document titled "Really Nice Reviews" to read and reread when I need a pick-me-up. However, when I try to assign myself the job of answering them, even if there's only a couple, it becomes a job. This is especially true if there's not really a lot there for me to know what to say. Then, I go into a spiral where I was taught that I can't have "fun" until I do "all my work." That means I can't even daydream about future chapters until I figure out a meaningful response to everything.

So—fast forward and I've spent two weeks AVOIDING my Caryl fics because I "can't" allow myself to write them or even think about them. I've now successfully gotten myself stuck on all of them. It's been absolutely horrible.

That being said, I'll be answering reviews, as I used to, if there's something there that I feel like I can answer, etc., but I'm going to have to just say I failed at this endeavor. I do love all of your reviews/comments, and they do help immensely with the motivation to publish new chapters, but I just fail at trying to answer everything and continue to write. If you're someone who needs that response back in order to read and comment/review to let me know that you're reading, then I respect that, and I hope that you find something that you can read where all your needs are fulfilled.

As for me, I have to do what I have to do in order to be able to keep writing, because otherwise I'm just stalling on literally everything. I'm sorry!

I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Please don't forget to let me know what you think! (But, also know that I may or may not get back to you, even though that absolutely doesn't mean that I don't appreciate your words. LOL)