The Breakfast Club

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"Hey, Kid." Daryl stumbled to a stop halfway up the stone pathway and frowned when he encountered Noah sitting on the front porch step, wearing a blanket cape and a droopy, disinterested pout. "Shouldn't you be at school?"

The kid's only answer was a shrug of his skinny shoulders and a long, drawn out sniff of his nose that ended in a mini-coughing fit, and the border collie curled lazily against his side jerked upright with a disgruntled yelp.

His own head feeling fuzzy, Daryl joined him on the step, giving the dog a half-hearted shove to make some room. "Scoot, Apollo." The aged animal merely groaned and went belly up, raising its arthritic limbs in the air. "Ain't scratchin' your flea-bag ass. Scoot." The dog didn't move a muscle, and it looked so pathetic gazing up at him with its dopey upside down smile and tongue lolling out of the side of its mouth that Daryl relented, reaching down to scratch between its flopped ears. "Fine. Best not be thinkin' me and you's friends all of a sudden." Something half-way between a giggle and snort escaped the kid then, and he smirked to himself, counting the reaction as a small victory of sorts. The kid didn't say much, stayed all tucked up tighter than a clam. Mrs. Irma was always claimin' they was two peas in a pod, and Daryl reckoned the woman weren't too far off the mark. The kid had been in a shit situation before the old man and Mrs. Irma had stepped up and taken him in. Had two twin baby brothers in another home out there somewhere and a mama up in Heaven. Only difference was the boy's deadbeat daddy had done him a solid the way Daryl looked at it, giving him away to somebody that cared while he still had a chance to make something of himself. He allowed himself a brief moment to wonder if Merle would still be around if his own daddy done the same, but that was it, just a spit in the wind 'cause the past was the past. Weren't nothin' to do for it now. Stretching his legs out in front of him with a sigh, Daryl studied his perpetually muddy boots and let the afternoon sun warm his face for a while. Finally, he made a sheepish admission. "Principal Monroe sent me home. Guess she didn't want me infectin' the rest of those preppy pricks. Ask me she was just pissed I fell asleep in English Lit. Weren't no skin off my nose. Rather recite Shakespeare than listen to another word of The Canterbury Tales. Do yourself a favor, Kid, and remember this when you get to your senior year. Skip that week."

Again, Noah didn't respond. The first grader's avid attention barely strayed from the bowl propped upon his knobby knees to acknowledge Daryl had even spoken, and he continued to comb a shiny silver spoon through what looked and smelled like Mrs. Irma's famous homemade chicken noodle soup.

Daryl's stomach growled in longing, and his mouth watered. Even Beakman and Bill Nye (Andrea's nicknames for Mullet Boy and Milton, not his) claimed that shit had healing powers, and he was damned sick of being brought down to his knees by a silly cold. "She make enough for the rest of us, Kid, or you just gettin' special treatment?" The boy nodded, slurping up a squiggly noodle, and Daryl snorted, standing up and brushing off the seat of his jeans so he could go find out himself. He rubbed his hand over Noah's curly head of hair in parting. "Good talk, Kid. You watch out for Apollo. He may be old, but he's a sneaky fart. He's eyein' you up right now, just waitin' for you to drop him a bite." He smiled to himself as he let himself in the house, the kid's soft giggle-snort of a laugh and the dog's unmistakably happy whine echoing dully in his ears. The door closed with a soft snick behind him, and he had to blink a couple of times to let his eyes adjust to the change in light. If he didn't know any better, he'd think he'd stepped into a fuckin' cave. And not just any cave. The air conditioning hummed steadily in its efforts to combat the late summer heat, and gooseflesh erupted over much of Daryl's body. Rubbing his hands up and down his arms briskly, he decided maybe the kid's idea to enjoy the August day outside weren't such a bad one, after all. He dropped his arms to his sides when he heard Mrs. Irma's voice softly calling out.

"Noah? Sweetheart, is that you?" Heaping laundry basket in hand, she descended the stairs, careful and quiet. She froze on the third step from the bottom, seemingly holding her breath when it squeaked underfoot, and waited several seconds before making another move.

Even in the dim light, Daryl recognized the moment she realized it was him, not the kid, standing there in the living room. Worry lines formed deep grooves in between her brows, and she almost lost her grip on the basket's handles. The warm smile she always wore fell away, and her mouth pinched in dismay.

"Well, it must not have been too bad if Deanna didn't bother giving me a call." She set the basket in her hands down between the sofa and coffee table and propped one hand on her hip. The other she ran tiredly through her hair, loose and wavy against her shoulders, before bending to turn on a nearby lamp with a twist of her fingers. "Come on over here and let me inspect the damage."

Daryl couldn't help flinching at the disappointment lacing her soft words. Still, he obeyed her beckoning hand, only muttering out his version of an explanation when her cool hands cupped his face and he couldn't contain the shiver her gentle touch elicited. "Weren't nothing like that."

Shaking her head, she sighed and tenderly brushed her fingers through the hank of hair that fell over his forehead. "You dear, sweet, stubborn boy. Why didn't you say something? You're feverish."

Daryl shrugged and shifted his gaze to the floor, still uncomfortable with her kind ways after nearly a year under her and the old man's roof. "Ain't nothin'."

"Nonsense," she clucked softly. "It's Amy's cold is what it is. She's doing much better, thank the Lord, but that child has done passed her germs off to Noah and now you. Sit down, Dear." She didn't give him much choice, pushing on his shoulders until he collapsed in a tired heap on the overstuffed couch and tucking the little girl's mermaid blanket around his shoulders. "I know just the thing to make you feel better. I'll be right back."

She wasn't right back. Not that Daryl paid no mind. His heavy lidded eyes closed on him several times, and he even felt himself sliding sideways on the sofa more than once. Was the whimpering sniffle pulled him back to full awareness, and he sat up like a shot, Amy's blanket falling to his lap as his bleary blue gaze searched for the source of that pitiful noise. He found it barely an arm's length away, and his heart was inexplicably creeping up the column of his throat as he leaned forward to peer over the towel-laden laundry basket's edge. "The hell?"

Hugged up tight in the makeshift crib like nesting baby squirrels were two babies of the human persuasion.

Least the little girl baby looked human, with her pink striped leggings and the strawberry fuzz covering her delicate head. Daryl weren't so convinced about the Grimes kid, and it was the Grimes kid, no doubts about it. He'd seen too many pictures on the inside of Grimes Senior's locker to think any different. The little snot-bubble blowing tyke looked like a damned Ewok in monster truck pajamas with all that dark hair on his head, and he had his sharp little claw-hands wrapped around one of the baby girl's ears, playing tug-o-war with it in his sleep. As Daryl watched, he gave it a particularly fierce yank, and the whimpering sniffle turned into a cry no louder than a kitten's mewl, pink cupid's bow lips puckering into a pout and a pair of pretty hazel eyes opening to stare straight at him. "I look like your mama?" Daryl huffed when those eyes seemed to plead with him for help in the face of the Grimes kid's renewed attacks. "Aww, shit," he muttered when a pool of fat crocodile tears threatened to spill down her doll cheeks. "'Right. Just hang on." Scooting to the couch's edge, he bent at the waist and scooped the baby up by her armpits, holding her at arms' length like she was an explosive ready to go off. In some respects, Daryl figured that weren't far from the truth, seeing as how she screwed those little auburn brows of hers up and those kitten cries of hers started to gain strength as her lungs warmed up. "Whatcha doin' that for? Saved you from Edward Scissorhands. What else you want from me? C'mon, Sweetheart. Please." No amount of begging seemed to work, and for the first time, Daryl wondered if Mrs. Irma had hauled ass all the way to the diner for his cold remedy. But surely, his scrambled, aching brain reasoned, she wouldn't leave him alone with a baby. Make that two babies. One or both of the mothers had to be around somewhere; he vaguely remembered bits and pieces of a conversation about Mrs. Irma teaching again, helping a couple down on their luck patsies catch back up with the rest of their class, and since he recognized the Grimes kid, that meant Olive Oyl couldn't be far. Could she? The more he thought about it, the more agitated he grew, and the little girl sensed it, her little face flushing a deep red. Well fuck.

The baby girl snuffled against his neck when he threw himself against a mound of throw pillows in resignation, tickling her tiny fingers across the collar of his tee-shirt before sticking them in her own mouth and sucking.

Daryl cringed when her fingers left her mouth with a soft pop, and she trailed a string of slobber across his jaw, batting at his nose with her pillow-soft palm. He captured her waving hand in his fist when it bopped him in the mouth, bringing it back down to his chest. He shushed her when she started whimpering again and tucked his arm tighter across her wiggling little body. That seemed to settle her down, and Daryl felt himself start to drift again, the baby girl snuggled over his thudding heart, until he heard footsteps, slow and hesitant, and the soft clearing of a throat. Without opening his eyes, he issued some grumbling advice. "Need to trim those switchblades on your kid's hands. If I hadn't rescued his little girlfriend here when I did, she'd be scarred for life. Right, Sweetheart?" The baby sighed, flexing her tiny fingers in his hand, and Daryl felt an almost painful answering tug at his heart. Uneasy with the emotion, he cleared his throat and dropped his hand to his side, pressing it into the plush surface of the sofa and holding off on looking at Olive Oyl as long as he could. He'd be damned if he let her see Daryl Dixon all fucked up over a little girl that didn't weigh no more than a sack of potatoes. "Think you can take her so I can go find Mrs. Irma, find out what happened with…" He trailed off when a soft voice he'd only heard a few times before cut in, and his eyes snapped open.

"Of course. Come to Mommy, Sophia."

Daryl swallowed, stupidly stuttered out the obvious as his arms involuntarily snugged around the baby girl resting peacefully against him. "You're…you ain't Lori." Those eyes of hers were even bluer than he remembered, that shy smile even sweeter than it'd been that day at the farm. "I…uh, what are you doin' here?" She giggled and stretched her arms out, steam rising from the bowl in her hands, as he blurted his next question. "What happened to Mrs. Irma?"

"She's helping Lori with a trig question, and I'm bringing you soup." Nodding at her daughter in his arms, Carol gently teased him. "C'mon, Daryl. I'll trade you, fair and square."

"You remember my name?"

"Course, I do. You're kind of hard for a girl to forget."

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