"Hey Merle, get your truck, we're goin on a run!" Daryl yelled out to him, there were more then a few walkers spread out around the fence, but the weren't much of a herd, it wouldn't stand in there way. Nothing on earth and the armies of hell besides could stop him right now, he loaded up his crossbow hopping into Merle's truck, it took almost no time to get on the road.

"Mind tellin me where we're headed baby brother." Merle asked once he'd gotten on the road, going the direction Daryl had pointed.

"Hospital, Hershel says he can't tell if the baby's okay without a sonogram machine." He told him, Merle nodded, they drove silently for a few minutes.

"You know what a sonogram machine looks like?" Merle asked, Daryl shot him a look, but in all honesty he'd never seen one up close.

"I got the just, it'll have to do." Daryl told him, they fell into silence again, Merle was keeping his usual comments to himself out of respect for the situation, but as the silence dragged on he turned towards him.

"Sorry brother, I know how excited you are about that kid, I really hope nothin happens to it." Merle said quietly, Daryl nodded still staring out the window at the few straggling walker roaming around.

"Ya, I know, if that son of a bitch killed my kid, I'm gonna hunt him down and skin him alive." Daryl said calmly, had it been anyone but Merle they might have thought he was exaggerating, but Merle had seen him mad, he started out all bark and bite, but when he got truly pissed he went right past that to this scary calm he called it zen, then he just got even.

"We should go the rest a the way on foot, clear it out then bring your noisy ass truck in only if the damn things too big to carry." Daryl told Merle, he nodded pulling over and turning his truck off, Daryl shouldered a large duffel and, they went towards the hospital completely silent, you wouldn't guess it from looking at the pair, but after what they'd gone through in Atlanta, they had perfected getting in and out undetected.

The hospital wasn't over run, but it had it's share of walkers shambling around, Daryl and Merle shared gestures that would have meant nothing to anyone else, but to them it was clear as day. Daryl went first firing a bolt into the closest one, then fell back reloading while Merle stepped up knifing the next one and retrieving Daryl's arrow, he tossed it back, Daryl Fired his next one and caught the bolt putting it back in his bow.

They kept this up all the way into the hospital, Merle went to the desk checking where the maternity ward was, Daryl kept an eye out, Merle nodded to a direction and the game started again, Merle was damn good with his new hand.

They made there way up to the maternity ward, Merle gestured to a locked metal door that said storage on it, Daryl tried the handle to illustrate his point, Merle rolled his eyes crouching in front of it and pulling out a thick piece of wire. Daryl sighed, he should never have doubted that Merle would be prepared for this, Merle always had been fond of breaking and entering.

He heard the door click open just as he was pulling a bolt out of a walkers head, they went in the poorly illuminated room, this time Merle watched, while Daryl worked, he pulled a flashlight out of his pocket clicking it on and looking around, he spotted what he was pretty sure was a portable sonogram machine, he stuffed it into the bag, then he started sweeping other shit into the duffel, no reason to waste an opportunity just because he didn't know what all the shit was.

He was sure to get high end pain killers, antibiotics, and adrenaline, plus whatever else would fit, then he slid it back over his shoulder, and that was that, they got out smooth, he and Merle were a well oiled team, no surprises as long as Merle stayed clear of the drugs.

Carol was pacing nervously in the yard, it was starting to get dark and they still weren't back, not to mention the pain in her abdomen was still throbbing, making her panic a little extra. T-dog put his hand on her shoulder stopping her.

"Gonna wear a hole in the dirt if ya don't stop pacing around, it's only been three hours, even if everything went perfect they won't be back for an hour and a half." he told her, she nodded trying to calm down Beth and the group minus Hershel and Lori were working on the field, but before she could even imagine relaxing a loud horrible siren came on.

They all looked around in horror, what had made that noise start now, they needed to take care of it right away, it would draw in every walker from here to Florida. Rick went running into the building with Carl obviously to shut off the alarm.

"Come on, we need to check the perimeter!" T-dog told her running towards the gates, they checked the first one, and ran by it still closed, but they ran into walkers on there way to the next, which could only mean one thing, the gate was open.

They ran towards it taking out the walkers they passed, and they were right, the gate had been opened, it had to have been Chad. Carol watched in horror as T-dog closed the gate and one of the geeks took a bite out of his shoulder just as she buried her machete in it's skull.

"T-dog!" Carol gasped in horror, he looked around at the walkers running around them, he grabbed her arm and pulled her into the building. She pulled her scarf off wrapping it around his shoulder.

"Gotta get you back to the cell block!" He told her, determined that he would at least make it count. Carol felt tears stinging at her eyes, tears she had no time for so she pushed them back, she knew they would return with a vengeance later, but for now she had a baby to protect.

They rushed for the cell block, but they were a long ways off and with the fading light an the panic, she was pretty sure they were lost. They were in such a blind rush that they ended up trapped in a hall with groups of walkers on both ends, they were packed in too tight, they could never pick them off like that.

"Run!" T-dog yelled at her rushing at the group of walkers, but Carol was paralyzed by what she saw, he just ran at them letting them eat him.

"Run!" He yelled again this time his voice was filled with agony, and it shocked her out of her head, so she ran, and ran, and ran. She knew she wasn't too far from the cell block, but she was beyond exhausted and the walkers just kept coming. She saw a janitorial closet, and ran to it, she needed a minute to rest or she was going to get killed.

As she was pulling the door shut a walker grabbed at her, she swung her machete into it's head, but she didn't have the strength to pull it back out, and as the huge walker started falling he was pushing the door closed at her, she pulled her arm back hurriedly as the heavy metal door snapped shut, stumbling back. Her feet slipped on a slick spot on the floor and she tumbled back thwacking her head against the mop sink.

It left her dizzy and woozy, when she sat up her whole world tilted off kilter, and she turned vomiting in the sink. She fell back against the wall, she'd never felt so drained in her life she closed her eyes, she knew she shouldn't, but she couldn't stop.

Daryl and Merle were horrified by what they saw when they got back, the yard was scattered with walkers, and there was no one to be seen. Daryl got out opening, and closing the gate so Merle could get his truck in, and then they started picking off the walkers in the same slow crawl they'd used at the hospital.

They'd picked off a good number of them by the time they made it into the prison, it wasn't until he saw his first walker inside the walls that he started to panic. When they got back to the cell block though the group seemed to be safe, Lori was holding a tiny baby in her bunk, everyone was with her, everyone except T-dog, and Carol.

The group didn't look the way it should when surrounding a new mother and her child, they were solemn, Lori was sobbing deeply.

"Where's Carol?" Were the first words past his lips, the whole group looked up at him, even rick looked on the verge of tears.

"We can't find her, she was with T-dog when Chad opened the gates and set off the alarm, I went to shut the alarm off with Carl, and she went with T-dog to close the gates." Rick told him, Daryl stumbled back like Rick had punched him in the gut.

"Then we gotta go find her, what the hell's everyone doin standin around flappin your jaws, Merle." Daryl turned to his brother, he nodded and they turned rushing towards the exit, Rick and Glenn fell in behind them. It didn't take long to clear the yard of the remaining walkers and get to the gate, Daryl picked up the trail.

They followed it into the prison the same way they'd come in when they'd first taken the prison, the followed the trail of dead walkers to a huge blood stained smear on the floor with Carol's scarf soaked in the blood. Daryl picked it up gingerly looking at it for a long moment, then a growl welled up in his throat morphing into a scream that if heard from afar you would never think was human.

"Daryl!" Merle yelled putting his hand on his shoulder, Daryl rounded punching Merle right in the face, he pulled out his buck knife and ran off down the hall destroying any walkers he saw. Merle stopped Rick and Glen from rushing after him.

"Leave him be, I got this." Merle told them, they nodded turning to head back while Merle followed his brothers path of carnage. Daryl stopped when he came to a walker with Carol's machete stuck in it's head. He had a moment of hope, but then realized Carol had no other weapons or she would have used them by now, which made the prospect of finding her just as grim as the scarf.

He yanked the machete out of the things head and started slashing at the other walker shambling towards him, then he rounded on the things body hacking at it over and over until he fell to the ground in tears.

The door behind the walker thudded against it's heavy body weakly, and it kept doing it, he growled up at it, it had to be a walker. Then it struck him, what if it was Carol, what if she was the walker banging weakly on that door, the thought brought bile to his throat.

He stood up trying to walk away, but his thoughts found him pacing wildly kicking the door, if it was Carol he didn't want to see her and his unborn child dead, but if it was he had to put her down, she deserved that much. He went over to the door putting the blunt side of the machete into his mouth and yanking the mauled body of the walker away from the door and ripping it open machete in hand ready to kill.

What he saw had him in tears again, it was Carol, covered in blood looking up at him weakly, he fell into a crouch putting his free hand under her chin checking her for bites. When he found none, though there was a fair amount of blood in her hair, he scooped her up into his arms.

"I got ya." He whispered kissing her head as he carried her back to the infirmary, her machete hanging from his wrist, they ran into Merle half way back, he froze for a moment, but as they got closer, he could see his smile.

"Hell's bells, I'll get the doc!" Merle yelled running back they way he came, by the time Daryl toed the door to the infirmary open, Hershel and Merle were setting up the sonogram machine.

"She took a knock to the head, poor thing's exhausted." He told Hershel, they sat her up and he stitched her head wound closed setting up an IV.

"Is our baby okay?" Carol asked, Daryl looked up at Hershel, he nodded pulling Carols shirt above her belly, and preparing the sonogram.

"We'll know in a sec babe." Daryl told her, she clutched his hand tightly, he knew how nervous she was, because he felt it too. The silence was oppressive as Hershel moved the sensor across the slick skin he'd smeared with jelly.

"I'm happy to say, you have a healthy little baby in there." Hershel told them happily, Carol's eyes were wet with tears of joy, Daryl hugged her to him, incredibly relieved. They spent a week clearing the prison back out, it turned out Rick had shot Chad when he went to turn the alarm off, Daryl was glad he was gone, but in all honesty he'd wanted to do it himself.

The next seven months were pretty uneventful, Merle was part of the group again, they had a ceremony for T-dog, Lori named her baby girl Judith Anne, they found out that there baby was going to be a boy, Daryl, and Merle hunted, Glenn and Maggie went on runs, they found actual locks for the gates, but it had gotten quiet, they'd carved out a life in this little prison, so when Carol went into labor, everyone was gathered in the hall while Daryl held Carols hand.

"He's perfect." Daryl breathed when Hershel handed the baby over to Carol, she held him to her with a sweet exhausted smile.

"What should we call him?" She asked looking up at Daryl's awe struck face, he smiled back at her.

"How 'bout Dean." Daryl offered, she nodded looking down at her baby boy.

"Dean, do ya like that baby boy, Dean Vic Dixon?" She asked, the baby seemed to smile, but it was nothing compared to the smile on Daryl, he had a family, a real loving family. Merle, Carol, Dean, and there group, they were the perfect family.

-The End-