AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

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

111

"I couldn't," Carol protested.

"Why not?" Andrea asked. "I mean—it's hot right now, but everything would be up and running by tomorrow. By this evening, actually, but it'll take a little time to cool down."

"No, I mean—" Carol stopped. She looked around the trailer. It was a small two bedroom single-wide trailer. It wasn't fancy by high standards, but it was certainly nicer than the trailer where she was currently living and, honestly, it was nicer than she could imagine affording—especially given the money she was making as a waitress. The location, too, was peaceful and far enough away from everything that it seemed like nothing much existed outside of the slightly secluded little stretch of land. "I just mean—it's too much."

"It's comparable in size to where you're at now," Andrea said. "Two bedrooms. One for you and one for the baby. Two bathrooms, but I'm sure you're going to appreciate that extra bathroom when you've got a baby, and it's good for company."

"It's too nice," Carol said.

"It's not even really that new or nice," Andrea said. "It's well-maintained, but that's about it. I think you've been in that other place too long, and you've had the old man that runs that trailer park blowing smoke up your ass that what he's renting are decent homes."

"It's your home," Carol said.

Andrea laughed and looked around.

"It used to be my home," Andrea said. "And it was a good home. When I needed it. That's why I'm sure it'll be good for you. The furniture's included. And anything else you need, we can make it happen. But this isn't my home now. I live in that doublewide with my husband. We were going to sell this one, eventually, we just never got around to it. Never even got around to cutting everything off because we were going to fix up a few things before we tried to move it. Homes weren't meant to sit empty, Carol. They were meant to have people in them. Families. Why in the world would it be better for this place to just sit empty instead of having you move in?"

"What is Daryl going to say?"

"Technically, it's my trailer," Andrea said. "Which means the decision over what happens to the trailer is mine. It's sitting on Merle's half of the property, which means it's also my property. Now—that would matter only if I thought, for even a second, that Daryl wouldn't love the idea of you staying here. Of course, he's going to like the idea of you being here. And it'll make everything easier, too. Literally everything."

"He might feel like—like I'm encroaching on his space or his life or…something," Carol said.

"You're not moving into his trailer," Andrea said. "Besides—Daryl's life is pretty much what he's already presented it to be. He doesn't have any secrets. He works and he comes home to work more. It would be pretty hard to cramp his style."

"I don't know…" Carol said.

"Why don't you see what he says for yourself?" Andrea asked. She handed her phone over to Carol. On the screen was a text exchange between Andrea and Daryl. Andrea told Daryl that she was at the trailer with Carol, and that she really thought it would be best to get Carol out of the place where she was staying. It didn't seem safe or sanitary, according to Andrea. Daryl asked what Carol thought of the place, and Andrea asked him if he'd mind if she moved in there, or if it would bother him in any way.

Daryl had simply responded by telling Andrea that he'd be happy to take his truck over and get her stuff as soon as she was ready to move—and he was sure that Andrea could sweet talk Merle into helping, even if he wanted to give Daryl a hard time.

Carol held Andrea's phone a moment longer than she really meant to and stared at the words, her finger scrolling the exchange slightly up and down—not going any further back in Andrea's chat history than the message from the previous day where Andrea answered Daryl to tell him she had milk, and he was welcome to come over and get what he needed.

It wasn't forced. His arm wasn't being twisted. Andrea wasn't begging or, really, misrepresenting anything except, maybe, to say that the trailer where Carol was currently living wasn't safe or sanitary. The truth of the matter was, though, that Carol knew in her gut that Andrea wasn't lying.

"I wouldn't want y'all to feel like I'm—invading your space or overstepping my boundaries," Carol said.

"If we were going to feel that way, I wouldn't have brought you," Andrea said. She walked over to the couch in the living room and sat down on the middle cushion. For just a moment, she wore the expression of someone returning to somewhere familiar, and for which they held a certain fondness. She ran her hands over the cushions next to her and then patted one and gestured at Carol to join her. Carol did sit.

Lunch with Andrea had been fun. It had been more than fun. It had been wonderful, and it had been nothing more than lunch with some slightly strained conversation, at first, where they'd tried to find something to talk about that wasn't the current arrangement between Carol and Daryl. In the end, Carol had told Andrea a little about the diner—including meeting Merle there as a regular—and Andrea had told Carol a little about how her day normally went at work.

And, still, it had been wonderful to Carol because she couldn't recall how long it had been since she'd sat across the table from another woman and just had a meal and a conversation with a friend. She could hardly remember what it felt like to laugh, and watch people, and to feel like part of a unit.

Carol was lonely—truly lonely. And she'd been lonely for a long time. That was the way Ed had liked her, and his company had ended up being the kind of company that only made her feel emptier and lonelier.

Settling on the couch, Carol became at least briefly aware of the fact that, if she lived here, she wouldn't feel as lonely. With the Dixons as neighbors, she would be bound to interact with them some. There might be more meals like there had been when they'd discussed things. There might be more conversations like the one it seemed Andrea was inviting her to have now.

And even if she kept her distance so as to not invade the privacy of a family to which she really had no right, at the very least there would be waves and greetings from time to time.

"I can't get you to understand everything you're giving us by agreeing to this," Andrea said. "But—I'm willing to keep explaining, if that's what it takes."

"I know how much Daryl wants a baby," Carol said.

Andrea sighed.

"I already told you that I slept with Merle right away, when I met him," Andrea said. "And—I'm the one that bought all the kits for you and talked with you about them and the research I've done. So—I guess that I don't have to feel like I'm at risk of oversharing too many of my cards anymore. Listen—because of this? Because of your agreement with Daryl, Merle and I stopped using condoms."

Carol felt her face grow warm. At the same moment, though, she was more overcome by a warmth of intimacy than she was embarrassment.

"You're pregnant?" Carol asked.

Andrea looked struck.

"Well—no. Not yet. I mean…it doesn't happen that fast. And that's even if it does happen. It's common for it to take a while. The point is that Merle and I have gone back and forth on whether or not we wanted to start a family for years. I've been giving him the tired speech for a while that I'm not getting any younger and, if we want more than one, we had better get started."

"He didn't want children?"

"He wants children," Andrea said. "But—Merle acts like an asshole. The truth of the matter is, though, that he'd rather cut out his heart with a rusty blade than see Daryl hurt. He thought it would all be too much for Daryl. The two of us. Getting married and having a family. Of course, Daryl would be happy for us, and he'd never say that we couldn't or shouldn't do that, but Merle just thought it would be too much for him. You know—just the feeling like his brother was getting everything he knew he wanted, and he wasn't getting any of it. He just thought it might make him feel…lonely, I guess. And—they say that loneliness can kill people."

"I know," Carol said. Immediately, she felt a rush of warmth and the sensation of having shared too much with nothing more than two words. Andrea gave her a look, but she didn't say anything, and she didn't press for more.

"Well—now that it looks like Daryl's got, you know, something to look forward to, it feels like we can move forward without worrying so much."

"I have to ask," Carol said. "And—if it's none of my business…"

Andrea laughed.

"In the span of one day, I told you that I slept with Merle before I really knew him. I told you that—we're not using condoms anymore when we have sex. I'm curious to hear what you're going to come up with that you think I'll tell you isn't your business."

Carol laughed in response.

"It's more about Daryl," Carol said. Andrea nodded her head.

"I guess you're entitled to know some things about him," she said, a hint of teasing to her tone.

"Well—you've said that if it weren't for Merle you'd be with Daryl," Carol said. "And…he seems…nice." Andrea was nodding at her with her brows furrowed. "Then—I just want to know why. Why isn't he married? Why…"

"Is he advertising for a woman to have his child?" Andrea finished. Carol nodded her head. "You want to know what's wrong with him."

"I don't mean it that way," Carol said, knowing that's exactly what she meant, but still feeling guilty for it.

"No—it's a totally normal and rational question," Andrea said. "And it's completely a question that anyone would ask. I would have asked the same thing about Merle if I didn't already know the answer. I did kind of ask it."

"Are you going to share it with me?" Carol asked with a laugh at the smirk on Andrea's face.

"Well—Merle and Daryl are different," Andrea said. "But—not entirely. Listen…Daryl is sensitive. He's…I guess you could say…he's afraid of rejection. He doesn't handle it well. Not at all. He saves himself from the rejection by not putting himself into situations where he can be rejected. Hurt. He tends to stay away from people so they don't have the chance to ask him to stay away. He buries himself in his work because he's good at his work. He gets approval for it. But the transactions are quick, and they're business-like, and they're done. Nobody has the chance to hurt him. He doesn't get attached to anyone, so they can't hurt him by leaving."

"He hurts himself to keep from being hurt?"

"That's it exactly," Andrea said. She sighed. "But it's a war, you know? There's some story about wolves and…and everybody has two wolves inside them. Some people, I guess, even have a pack. But they're always fighting to make you go different directions. For Daryl, it's a war. He doesn't want to be alone in the world. He's just afraid that he doesn't have a choice, so he'd rather choose alone than let someone else choose it for him."

"But the baby…"

Andrea smiled to herself and shrugged her shoulders.

"Merle and Daryl had a shitty family," Andrea said. "But Merle's done everything he can to try to teach Daryl that—it can stop. It can get better. They can be the family that they wanted and needed. And family can be forever. Babies don't judge—at least not like adults do. All they know is love. And—Daryl's got plenty of that."

Andrea sighed again. She shook her head and reached over, patting Carol's leg and then catching her hand to squeeze it.

"You see? I told you before, but I'll say it again. This baby—and everything you're doing? It means so much to all of us," Andrea said. "Move in the trailer? It's a nice place for you and the baby. It'll be move-in ready tomorrow."

"I have to work tomorrow," Carol said.

"Is any of the furniture yours?" Andrea asked. Carol shook her head.

"I only came with—well…let's just say that I didn't bring a lot when I left my husband," Carol said. She'd only told limited information about Ed. Mostly, she'd only shared that she was getting a divorce. They knew that the marriage was a failure, and a bad decision on Carol's part, but she hadn't exactly shared the details of that bad decision.

"Pack up whatever you have," Andrea said. "Leave it in the living room. Someone'll swing by to pick up a key at the diner tomorrow and drop one off. After work, you come home—here."

Carol smiled to herself. She was hyper-aware of the blonde's hand curled around hers. She squeezed Andrea's hand and looked around the trailer. It really was much nicer than the one she was staying in now. It was nicer than anything she might have imagined she could afford after leaving Ed, especially when he'd made it clear that she'd never have anything without him.

"Home," she said. "I like the sound of that."