AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!

11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111

Carol was unusually clingy, and Daryl forgave her one hundred percent for that. He stood with her as she greeted everyone, and he offered his greetings—the style of greeting varying slightly from person to person, depending on how well he knew them. He helped Carol carry the food to the table. He seated Merle at one head of the table and Clyde at the other, and he pulled up a seat beside Carol's at the bar—given that there wasn't enough room for everyone at the dining table, so they had to spread out a bit— so that he could sit beside Carol and keep patting her leg with his hand to ground her when she got distracted by her thoughts.

Dinner was light and amiable. Daryl noticed that, when food was passed around, Merle fixed Andrea's plate for her. He wasn't sure if it was because Andrea liked to be served, because Merle liked serving Andrea, or if it was in response to the trouble that he knew she'd had after their bad day shopping.

Daryl and Merle had discussed the problem. Neither of them knew exactly what had been said, but they could piece together enough to know that Michonne had said whatever it was, and that both of them were being convicted as "guilty" of whatever sins she'd imagined without a fair trial.

Andrea's particular concern was one that she'd always had—weight gain—but it was intensified at the moment. Since Merle saw that as a potential threat to their child, he wasn't fucking around with it. Daryl was almost certain, based on the determination on his brother's features as he created what he thought was the perfect plate and placed it in front of Andrea with a grunt that said there would be no discussion, that Merle would spoon feed her if he had to, and he'd tell anyone who said a single word to him to go to hell and spend the rest of eternity getting ass-fucked by the devil's crooked-ass dick.

Luckily, Andrea either enjoyed Merle's care-taking and need to exercise a little control over her, or she was simply feeling more agreeable about the whole thing, because she simply thanked him for the plate with a kiss on the cheek and then ate her food without any argument.

Nobody said anything to her about her plate full of food. Of course, all of them had plates overflowing with food, too, and everyone praised Carol's cooking.

Carol ate less than anyone, and Daryl knew it was because she was more focused on what would come later. Daryl could probably get her to eat a "snack" later of cold food. She preferred most of what was on offer, at any rate, after it had cooled down entirely.

Daryl didn't know if Carol go through with telling everyone about her baby girl, or if she'd change her mind, but he left her alone to make her own decisions. He engaged in conversation where he felt he had anything to contribute, and he focused on the meal that he was pretty sure was one of the best holiday meals he'd ever eaten in his life.

They left the tables and bar as they were, after they ate, and slipped into the living room. Again, in the interest of keeping as close to Carol as was humanly possible, Daryl sat in a chair and invited her to sit with him. There simply wasn't enough space or seating for everyone to have a chair, so Daryl urged her to sit and, seeing her reluctance, Merle had quickly and easily convinced Andrea that his lap was an appropriate place to sit. As soon as the show of affection was deemed admissible and appropriate, Carol sank into Daryl's lap and he wrapped his arms around her.

The conversation continued on for a few moments, but Daryl forgot to listen. He forgot to be aware of anything beyond the comfort of holding Carol there in the cheery glow of the Christmas tree and the otherwise dim lighting they'd chosen to keep a comfortable feeling in the room.

When Carol squeezed Daryl's hand, it took him a moment to even remember what she was trying to communicate to him, but he remembered easily enough when she shifted and sat up a little straighter in his lap—her fingers locked around his hand almost like a vice. Daryl squeezed her hand back as she got everyone's attention and, slowly, the conversation drew to a halt.

"Before we—open presents, we wanted to thank you for coming to our first Christmas party," Carol said. "Next year, we imagine things will be a little bit different. If we're lucky, we'll have a six-month old."

"Two," Merle offered. "I mean—here," he amended when everyone looked at him. "Peanut'll be about that age."

Carol smiled and Daryl squeezed her gently with the arm he had wrapped around her. He was still allowing her to crush his other hand as much as she deemed necessary.

"Two," Carol said. "And Mich—maybe you'll bring the girls next year?" Michonne didn't really answer, but there was something of a non-committal nod from her as Tyreese nodded nearly his whole body along with the suggestion. "Ummm—so I just wanted to talk to everyone, and I didn't write this down, but maybe…I should have."

Daryl used his free hand to pat her hip as though drumming out a rhythm there might help her feel more at ease. She covered his hand with hers and patted it back, loosening her grip on his other hand. Daryl slipped his hand around and let it rest over her abdomen. He didn't really give a shit if anyone disapproved her not. She covered his hand with her own again.

"I had something I wanted to tell everyone," Carol said. "Because—I never really told anyone. I shared it with Daryl, though, and he convinced me that, well, you're all my friends and…the closest thing I have to family. You'd want to know. But—I also don't want to ruin the whole Christmas spirit…"

Daryl saw the shift. Carol's friends shifted forward—even Michonne—and suddenly their concern was palpable. It filled the room. Even Agnes suddenly looked like she was plagued with some kind of indigestion.

"Sweetheart," Daryl said quietly, "you gotta tell 'em now, 'cause I think you just set up somethin' that's got everybody worryin'…"

"Please don't worry," Carol said quickly.

"You're OK?" Andrea asked quickly.

"I'm fine," Carol said.

"Sprout…" Alice said.

"Is fine," Carol reassured her and everyone else there. "It's just—most of you know about my ex-husband. And if you don't? It's sufficient to say that…he was…"

"An asshole," Daryl interjected when it was clear that Carol was struggling. She squeezed his hand as a show of thanks and he rubbed his fingers where they rested over Sprout's little home.

"When I was married to him," Carol said, "he thought he wanted us to have a baby. Specifically, he thought he wanted to have a son. You know the traditional—a boy to carry on the family name and make his father proud idea. I got pregnant and, for just a little while, it seemed like…he really did want it." She pressed her fingers against the ones of Daryl's that were rubbing soothing little tracks over Sprout's spot. "Then—I don't really remember why or…I don't remember…but…one night he changed his mind. About the baby. I was eighteen weeks pregnant, and the hospital didn't have to record her birth. She was gone before she came into the world, but…"

Carol stopped short, and Daryl realized she wasn't getting any further. She couldn't. He pulled his hands back enough to physically turn her body, and he hugged her into him as if she were a baby herself. She buried her face against him, covering her face with her hand, and he held her with one arm and covered her face with his other hand—helping her have the privacy she needed for a moment.

Daryl hadn't planned or prepared to take over the speech at all. He'd thought that he'd be the silent partner in all of this, but it appeared that Carol needed more from him at the moment, so he gave her what he had to offer.

"Carol and me—we decided to honor her. She weren't respected like she ought to have been respected. But—we're lookin' to change that as much as, you know, we can. So, we're gonna…honor her. Really remember her. Who the hell she was for the eighteen weeks she was here. Who the hell she coulda been. We got a lil' tree for her right over there. Her lil' angel tree. Gonna set one up every year. Gonna do—we don't know what, to be honest. But other shit. For her. To celebrate her. We understand if…if nobody else cares or wants to celebrate her when we do, but…we figured you oughta know that…well…that's what the hell we plan to do."

Andrea was the first to hit her feet and, not long after hitting her feet, she hit her knees in front of the chair and wrapped herself around Carol. Consequently, for a moment, Daryl practically held both women in his lap. Before he knew it, her friends had gathered around, each of them fitting themselves into a spot somewhere to wrap around her until he was practically at the bottom of a dogpile.

It was uncomfortable, especially since Daryl typically took a while to work up to liking anyone's touch very much, but Daryl held his tongue.

This was what he wanted—at least to some degree. He wanted Carol's friends to support her. He wanted them to all share the outpouring of emotion that seemed like it was necessary between women at times like these.

And, more than anything, he wanted to know that he was such a source of comfort to Carol that her first instinct, when suffering something she wasn't sure she could tolerate, was to burrow down against him—practically into him—and to take comfort from him. Carol made him feel good, and right, and honorable in ways that he'd never imagined before. She made him feel comfortable in a way that he'd never believed was real. It made his heart ache, with the sweetest and most welcomed pain possible, to know that she sought comfort in him, as well, and that, somehow, he could offer it to her.

It also made him feel good to know that she felt like she could take that comfort with her. When she was feeling better—stronger, maybe—she'd straightened up out of the somewhat fetal position she'd taken in his arms. She'd kissed him, unapologetically and far more enthusiastically than he'd really imagined her kissing him while surrounded by others, and then she'd stood up to be entirely engulfed by the hugs and whispered condolences of her friends.

"Looks like a damn coven," Merle commented from his spot on the couch. His words were low, and laced with humor. They were meant to break the heavy tension in the room and, thankfully, they did. Even the women laughed. There were damp faces, and Daryl made a quick dart after the tissue box as Merle's named "coven" split apart and everyone started to wander in one direction or another back to their seats. Daryl passed around tissues before he sat down and welcomed Carol back into his lap, resting the tissue box in her lap.

"Did I—ruin the whole party?" Carol asked, wiping her face and blowing her nose with a handful of tissues.

"No…no…of course not," Andrea insisted first.

"We still got presents," Merle said. "You can't fuck up nobody's night if you give 'em a present."

Carol laughed at that, clearly thankful for Merle's decision to force humor into the space, and Andrea kissed the side of Merle's face as a show of thanks for his teasing.

As a distraction, while everyone digested the information, they opened presents. They did so in a totally disorganized fashion that, thankfully, ended up lightening the mood a great deal. As couples, they opened their gifts and soon wads of wrapping paper playfully flew around the room while people shouted out thanks for their gifts and assaulted each other with colorful paper projectiles.

Most of the gifts that Carol and Daryl and got were gifts given to them as a couple. They were given a few items for next year's Christmas decorations, they were given "His" and "Hers" oven mitts and a few other kitchen items since it was rumored that they liked to cook together, and they were given a few items of clothing for Sprout—all with tags for six to eight months so that, hopefully, they would fit—where his Aunt Andrea and Uncle Merle had selected some Christmas pajamas and a couple of Christmas sweaters that would be cute whether Sprout ended up being a girl or a boy. Sprout's honorary grandmother and, it seemed, probably his honorary grandfather, had bought him a few Christmas-themed toys so that, when Christmas came around, he could play with some fat, rubber Christmas characters, and he could suck on a pacifier that came with a soft reindeer attached to it to cuddle while he sucked.

When the presents were done, Daryl got the feeling that Carol and her friends could use a few moments, so he stood up and, taking the box of cigars that Clyde had brought, invited anyone who wanted to join him on the back porch to come out for a cigar and coffee or a drink—whatever they wanted.

Thankfully, Merle, Tyreese, Clyde, and the man named T that had tagged along with Jacqui wanted to come. Daryl got everyone situated with a beverage of choice and sent them out ahead of him before he tugged Carol to hall bath with him for the smallest moment of privacy.

"You gonna be OK?" He asked, brushing his fingers over her cheek.

She gave him a smile that he believed.

"I'm perfect," she said. "Because you're perfect." He believed her kiss, too, though it made him uncomfortable because he immediately had to start thinking of unpleasant things.

"If anybody says shit to you that'cha don't like…"

"We'll be fine," Carol said. She laughed quietly. "Besides—Agnes is in there, and she's a scrapper."

Daryl laughed in response.

"She damn sure is," he said. "She'll be broke some damn body's nose if they mess with her grandbaby. Still—if you need me…"

"I know," Carol said. "Go have fun. And when everybody leaves…I'll let you take advantage of me in my baby dress."

Daryl's whole body ran warm at the teasing.

"You killin' me, woman," he said. Carol giggled.

"And you like it," she said.

"More than your ass'll ever know," Daryl agreed.