The winter went by rather quickly. Thank God! I don't think these southerners could have handled the damn cold much longer. We had our high and low points and some in between. There was a particular in between point that was intensely scary.

We were shacked up in a house somewhere and I wasn't feeling too great. Lori comes up to me and asks what's wrong.

"I've felt nauseous and tired for the last couple of weeks" I tell her.

She looks at me terrified "When was the last time you had your period?"

I think "I can't even remember" It's been a long few weeks

"Oh no Gwen, you might be…" She looks around to see if anyone is paying attention "Pregnant" she whispers

I shake my head "No, Its stress and lack of iron tablets" I left them back at the farm.

"You should really get a test on your next run" She says

I sigh "Okay, I better not be or I'll flip…No offence" I say looking pointedly at her small bump

She laughs "None taken, oh and don't do what I did, tell Daryl before you take the test, so he's there for the result, you can't keep it to yourself and close yourself off that way"

I nod and salute "Yes ma'am"

We tend not to stay in a house for more than a week, just in case. We have been here a night and haven't had a problem so we decided to rest here for the week, hopefully. We are near a small town so Nessa, Andy and I go for a run. We are the only ones who can move quickly in snow and on ice. We're used to it.

This town has a small supermarket and thankfully we only have to take down a few walkers inside. We're all getting really good at it, we don't even think about it any more. We split up and try to find… anything. I go up the toiletries aisle and grab a few things, like tampons, it may be the end of the world but us women refuse to be disgusting. While I'm there I grab condoms because you can never be too carefully and a pregnancy test because I wasn't careful! I shove it down the back of my jeans and cover it with my shirt and jacket, I shove the other stuff in my bag and head down another aisle to get the non-perishables that are still here, there wasn't a lot but we got enough to feed us for a few weeks at least.

We get back to the house and our group are pleased at our haul. After a very small dinner, mostly because I have a bad habit of giving most of my food to Lori which she then proceeds to scold me for, probably another reason I feel ill, I tap Daryl's arm and motion him to follow me. He does. I slide out the back door of the house and we both check the area around us and listen carefully for any movement.

I don't speak, because I really don't know what to say so I just pull the test out and hold it in front of me. He squints at it in the dark then his eyes widen his expression one of shock and something unreadable.

"Yeah… only maybe, it was Lori's idea." I say with a shrug, keeping my panic at bay so he won't panic. "Wait here I won't be long."

I disappear to use the toilet and after feeling really stupid peeing on a stick, I return to Daryl. We sit on the back steps of the house and stare at the test intently.

"What do we do if it's positive?" I ask

He shrugs. "Don't shrug me Daryl"

"I… want it" He says quietly

I sigh "Look at us, we already have one pregnant woman and we never stay anywhere more than a week, we're not stable or safe."

"Yet" he says "When our baby is born we will be, I promise you that"

I take a deep breath "What would you want? Boy or Girl?" I ask

He shrugs "Don't care"

I nod with a smile and I move sideways and bump him with my shoulder "you'd be a good dad"

He looks at me shocked "You think?"

I nod "you would protect the kid with your life, can't ask any more than that. You could teach it how to hunt and track and I can teach it how to speak different languages and play the piano if we ever get one."

He grins. I look back at the test and the smile falls from my face. Daryl notices and looks as well. One line. "What does that mean?" he asks.

I drop the test into the snow feeling disappointed for some stupid reason. I smile at him "it's negative"

He looks even more disappointed than me. "It's probably for the best for now, sweetie" I tell him

I stand up and walk into the house. He walks in after me and grabs my wrist before kissing my forehead "One day"

I nod.

I walk back into the living room and Lori looks at me expectantly I smile and shake my head and she breaths a sigh of relief.

That was scary. I did not appreciate that moment of hysteria and actually feeling disappointed. Most of all, the fact I started to make plans for a child that doesn't exist! The rest of the winter passed rather uneventfully. We ran, searched, Rick and I tried to keep the group hopeful but that hope was wearing thin.

Winter is almost over but we're not out of the woods yet. We come upon an extremely familiar town. I look around me, no walkers… yet. I know where we are. I tap Daryl's shoulder and point right. He turns at the next right and drives up an abandoned street. Last time I saw this there were walkers everywhere, they must have moved on when the food supply ran out. That explains the herds we've been seeing everywhere over the last few weeks.

I tap Daryl's shoulder and he stops. The cars stop behind us too. I stand and stare up at the house "Where are we, Gwen?" Rick asks.

I smile sadly "This is mine and Nessa's house"

I move towards the house and pull out my gun and attach the silencer. Daryl, Rick, Glenn, Andy and Carl walk directly behind me. The door is still open, the way I left it. I move to the door and pat the frame, loudly and wait. Nothing, no groans, no shuffling. I walk in, weapon still raised. The boys spill in behind me and each take a room. I take the living room. I open the door quickly and look around. Empty and just as I left it, TV in the corner, the comforter still in a heap on the couch from when it slid off the morning before work, my coffee mug that I got as a present when I went to the Philippines still sitting on the coaster, thankfully empty and personal items belonging to Nessa and I scattered around the room, all in the same place.

I walk out and travel down the hall to my room and find Daryl in it looking at a picture tacked to my mirror. It's a really goofy picture of me and Nessa at a party in DC a couple of years ago. I forgot Nessa used to be a fake blonde.

"Find anything?" I ask from the door.

I hear the others spill into the house as he turns to look at me. He smirks and taps the picture "You missed one"

I shrug and head over. A necklace still dangles off the mirror frame along with my lanyard from Georgetown. I lift the card protector of the lanyard and lift it so he can see.

"I missed two" I say with a smile.

I head over to my wardrobe and open it quickly and automatically step back, just in case. I start pulling out some clothes and shove them into my bag, others I left out for the other girls.

I turn to Daryl and smirk "If you go to Nessa's room you can look through her ex boyfriend pile, I'm sure there is enough clothes there for all of you"

He chuckles a little "You calling your sister a slut"

I shrug "a little"

I put my bag and the clothes on the bed before opening the drawer in my nightstand. I peek over my shoulder at Daryl and see him looking at my PhD that hasn't been framed yet and is dusty. I quickly open the bottom of my vibrator and let the batteries fall into my hand before I drop it in and close it quickly. Daryl hears the drawer shut and turns to me.

"What you got?" He asks

I hold out the batteries, they could come in handy. He looks confused "Why would you have only two batteries in your nightstand"

I purse my lips and shove them in his hand "Does that matter?"

He shrugs. Stupidly thinking he dropped it, I look through the drawers of my vanity to see if there is anything worth taking when I hear a strange noise coming from Daryl. I turn curiously and my eyes widen as he holds the pink vibrator in his hand.

He looks at me with a smirk "Nice"

I glare at him "I may not have had a boyfriend in 4 years but a girl still got needs"

He puts it back in the drawer and raises his hand in surrender and moves over to me. I stand up finding nothing useful when Daryl's body presses mine into the vanity table. I groan at the friction the action made. He bites my ear a little before whispering.

"The thought of you using that is a real turn on" He breathes into my ear.

I grin and twist in his grip. "Is it?"

We are interrupted by a slight tap on the door. Daryl pulls away and looks at Rick who is smirking at us "Find anything?" He asks.

I head over to the bed and grab my bag and clothes. "Fresh clothes for the girls, ask Nessa if she has any guys clothes"

Rick grins "Done that and she did, quite a bit."

I look back at Daryl and smirk in a told you way. He shakes his head and follows me as I walk into the living room.

"I got us some clothes ladies, as you are probably well aware, some of it might be a bit loose due to my chest situation" I tell them.

Lori smirks "Perfect for me then"

I grin back. Nessa comes through from the kitchen. "Luckily you forgot your 'hide from Nessa stash' you thought I never knew existed" she says with an armful of tins.

I smirk "Oops"

Andy takes some of the cans from Nessa's arms and puts them on the coffee table "What's the 'hide from Nessa stash'" He asks.

"Nessa hated me eating out of tins so she kept on disposing of them and making massive meals and freezing them. So I hid some from her because sometimes a girl just needs some soup or fruit out a tin!" I say

Daryl drops down to the floor "Thank God you do"

"In your panic to leave did you forget anything else?" Rick asks, hopefully.

I think for a minute then head over to the book shelf/cabinet. I look at mine and Nessa's books, I should grab some later. Beth appears at my shoulder and spots a book and makes a noise of interest.

I lift my head in time to see which book she's pulling out "Wait, Beth"

Too late, Beth has already pulled out the blue spine, white covered book called the sick rose. On the cover is a 19th century drawing of a woman suffering from cholera.

"Ew" She says but like everyone else who sees the book, she can't resist opening it. She looks more and more disgusted with each page. "Why do you even have this?" she asks, letting Daryl take the book.

Nessa joins up and looks at the book and snorts with laughter "It was for my undergrad dissertation. I studied health and disease in post-medieval Edinburgh. That is a book full of disease. It's academic!" I say defensively.

Daryl is now looking through the book and comes across syphilis infected genitals and snaps the book shut with a grunt of disgust. I take the book off of him.

"Give me that!" I say

"That is a creepy book, Gwen" Daryl says as he moves away. The group laughs quietly.

I shake my head with a smile and put the book back "I suppose. I like it…it's disgustingly beautiful." I turn to them and lean against the book case and smile "I guess I've always been a little weird"

Nessa scoffs "That's for damn sure"

I frown "Oi, cheeky cow"

I move over the cabinet. I pull open the cabinet door and shuffle through the papers we shoved in there, it's our messy cabinet. I find what I'm looking for and pull out the two boxes of ammo.

I walk over to Rick and give them to him "Not much but it's something"

Rick grins "This is perfect, the difference between life and death"

I nod. Yeah it is, sadly.