Mine By Choice A Daryl Dixon Fatherhood story. TWD

S.2 E.4 A Rose, Another and Another.

*Hershel's POV*
I sat by Carl's bed checking his fever. "Fevers gone down" I say to the boy's parents. Carl begins to wake up and wiggle around. "Baby?" "Carl?" They say once he opens his eyes. "Sofia, Dylan, Rory? Are they okay?" He asks with a shakey voice. I feel slightly bad that they were still gone when he woke up. Rick paused for a brief moment before telling Carl they are fine. I get why he lied stressing out his body would be bad right now. Someone came in behind me as I checked out some of the equipment making sure it worked. There here a deep voice I recognised as T-dog said "Their here."

*Rick's POV*
We get outside to see everyone. "How is he?" Dale asks a worried look on his face. "He'll pull through, thanks to Hershel and his people." Lori began "and Shane we'd have lost Carl if not for him." I added. Dale had a look of relief as he hugged me. "Thank god, we were so worried. "Carol sighed a breath of relief hugging Lori. "How'd it happen?" Dale asks me. "Hunting accident that's it all just a stupid accident."

Sometime later we held a funeral for the man they lost. I will always be grateful for what he did for my boy. Shane acted a little odd jumping a bit. I chalked it up to recanting a man's death.

After the funeral, we went to talk about the missing kids. "How long have they been lost?" Hershel asked us. "This will be day 3," I say as Hershel's daughter Maggie brought over a map. "County survey map. Shows terrain and elevations" She says laying it down. I smile a bit as hope runs through me. "This is perfect we can finally get this thing organised. We'll grid the whole area start serching in teams." "Not you. Not today." Hershel interrupts me quickly. "You gave three units of blood. You wouldn't be hiking five minutes in this heat before passing out. And your ankle push it now, you'll be up a month, no good to anybody." "Guess it's just me. I'm gonna head back to the creek., work my way from there." Daryl says looking at the map. "I can still be useful." Shane says wanting to find those kids. "Tomorrow then. We'll start f
Doing this right. We will find the three of them." I say now we have a plan. "Three I thought it was just the two girls?" Meggie asks a worried look on her face. "They have a baby with them." Daryl said still looking over the map. "A baby, How old?" She asks. "He was born shortly after the world fell apart," I say not remembering the exact day. "Poor kids." She said sadly before flashing a small smile. "I'm sure they're gonna be grateful when you find them all." She says.

*Daryls POV*
I was going through the woods when I came across a house in a clearing. I grab my bow and go inside kicking through the door. I begin sweeping looking for walkers or other people. Then I see a can of tuna that's still wet. I direct my bow through a door. Walking to it slowly. I knock it open to see a pantry that still has food blankets and pillows on the floor. I leave and shout out the kid's names. Walking back to the woods. Stopping when I spot some white flowers.

*Glenn's POV*
I'm going on a run with Maggie, we are riding horses. It took a while to get used to but I think I'm okay now. "You know, normally ah. This is the kind of thing I do on my own. Solo." I say trying to sound cool. "It's sort of my thing you know I'm a loner." She just stares off. "You alright?" I ask. "I'm fine" we make it to the store it's mostly cleared out. "I'll go see what antibiotics are left, what else is on the list?" She asks when we get in. "Uh... why don't you get started?" I hand her a list. "What about you?" She asks in a reply. "I'm gonna look around, see what's worth grabbing just genual stuff." I lied to her Lori gave me a special list and asked me to keep it quiet. She walks off and I grab a basket filling it with anything useful. When I see the thing Lori asked for. "What you got?" Meggie asks coming up behind me. I scramble to hide the box, picking up whatever was beside me as an excuse. "Um-um... nothing just, like I said general stuff," I say waving the box. "Condoms?" She asks making me look at what I'm holding in shock. "You got a girlfriend I don't know about?" She asks me. As I try to think of a response. "Me? No. No." "Then you're a pretty confident guy." She says looking at the box in my hand. "No. No No No I-I-I- wasn't I would never" I say understanding what she was implying. "Something wrong with me?" She asks messing with me. "No. No I-I would-" I shudder out not catching on. "I would never have sex-" cutting myself off "Uh, I'm- I'm lost," I say as she looks at me. "I'll have sex with you." She said casually. I get extremely happy and ask "Really? Why?" "Your asking questions?" She asks back. "Okay, I can't help wondering." "It's not like our options are vast these days." She dropped her bag and took off our hats before kissing me.

*Daryl's POV*
I just got back so I went to the trailer to look for Carol. I walk in to see her fixing some clothing. "I cleaned up. Wanted it to be nice for her." She softly said. "For a second I thought I was in the wrong place." She scoffed at that. I placed three of the white flowers from earlier in a beer bottle on the counter. "A flower?" She asked confused. " it's a Cherokee rose. The story is that when American soldiers were moving Indians off their land on the trail of tears. The Cherokee mothers were grieving and crying so much cause they were losing their little ones along the way from exposure and disease and starvation. A lot of them just disappeared. So the elders, they said a prayer. Asked for a sign to uplift the mother's spirits, give them strength and hope. The next day this rose started to grow right where the mother's tears fell. I'm not fool enough to think there's any flowers blooming for my brother. But I believe these ones bloomed for your daughter, Bug and Baby Bug." She cried softly letting out a little giggle and nodding slightly. I went to go before a made it through the door I said. "She's gonna really like it in here." Making her smile a little.