[fic] lay your hands on the left behind [5/5]
Title: lay your hands on the left behind [5/5]
Author: badboy_fangirl
Fandom: The Walking Dead
Characters/Pairings: Daryl & Beth POV; Daryl/Beth; with appearances by everyone else.
Word Count: ~4000
Rating/Warnings: NC-17 / Spoilers through all of season four.
Summary: Because it's just a matter of time now:
And a video that I just found that's exactly all the moments that caused me to write all of this. If in anyway I conveyed the magic of them, I'm well pleased. It's been a journey for me as well. I thought this chapter might end up being really long, but ultimately it didn't feel right to drag it out. Daryl and Beth are minimalists, it just works for them. So I hope this works for you. Thank you for all the love. I hope this story made the hiatus a little more bearable! Bring on Season 5!
Author's notes: This is a companion/continuation fic to Empty Handed and Holding On. The opening quote for this chapter is lifted from the song "Tell Me a Story" by Phillip Phillips. Previous chapters: [1] [2] [3] [4]
Just pieces of a puzzle
He never thought this would happen.
Living dead things. Loving a girl. Saving some kid.
(Some kids.)
He never thought taking on the responsibility of those kids would bring such relief to him, that a weight would lift off his shoulders in a way that as they walk through the forest he feels like his feet aren't quite touching the ground.
By the time they get back to the encampment Lou is up and walking around. The bite on his neck doesn't look so good and it's tender to the touch, but he's not sick. "Feel a lot better now than I did 'bout six hours ago," he says, giving a weak grin, but a grin all the same.
Bob looks plumb tickled. His doctorin', as it were, had this result, something that could further impact the saving of the world. He should be proud, he really should, so Daryl says that and claps Bob on the back. Bob's smile is bigger than any expression Daryl's ever seen on the guy's face.
That's when Shep tugs on his arm. "There's a Cure? It fixes the dead people?" he asks.
Glancing down at the kid, who has practically attached himself to Daryl's hip (which, strangely enough doesn't bother Daryl at all), he motions towards Bob. "Yeah, as a matter of fact, Bob's the one who gives the shots to everyone. That's what we're doing out here, looking for people like you'n Jace, so we can give 'em the shot, the one that keeps ya from becoming a Walker. You interested?"
Shep's brown eyes narrow some as he looks back and forth between Bob and Daryl, and then over at Lou who happens to be being hugged by Beth at the moment. "Shots hurt," he states, though it doesn't seem to be a positive or a negative thing from his tone.
"Yeah, there's a bit of a pinch," Bob says. "But it will be over like that," he snaps his fingers. "And then you and your brother will be safer. Seem like a good idea?" Daryl has his own urge to disperse hugs as he watches Bob's simplistic approach work with the boy.
Jace is wiggling against Daryl's chest, his little arms and legs moving excitedly, and Shep reaches up, putting his hand flat over the baby's small torso. His eyes meet Daryl's and Daryl just gives him a small nod. The boy clears his throat. "I think so, yeah," he says. "We both better have it."
Bob and Sasha take the baby from Daryl and Shep goes with them over to the small area that had been set up as a triage. Daryl squeezes Shep's shoulder before he walks away, telling him he's just going over to talk to Abraham about what vehicle they'll be taking the next day.
As Daryl moves towards where Rosita and Abraham are standing, leaned up against one of the tanks in their convoy, Beth falls into step beside him. "Y'think Shep's gonna stick it out this time?" she asks in a quiet voice, sliding her arm through his.
His chest gets tight, just at the way her arm curls around his, the way her feet fall into rhythm with his. Every day is a lesson on how he can love Beth Greene more than the previous one somehow. He reaches over with his other hand, wrapping his fingers around hers. "I think so. I think the sooner we get him away from some of these people and just have him with us, the better. Any skittishness is gonna be more about these assholes who tried to hurt him than anything else."
Beth's lips quirk up as they near Abraham. "Prime suspect number one," she mutters, and Daryl presses his lips into a grim line.
He doesn't make any small talk, he just leads with, "So, which car you givin' us?"
Abraham sighs dramatically, but then nudges Rosita, pointing to a cloth bag lying on the tire of the tank. Daryl's consolation to the vague throbbing in his nasal cavity is the fact that Abe's left eye is rapidly swelling shut. Rosita leads them around the tank to a white Mazda that's parked on the other side, out of sight of the camp. After she digs through the cloth bag, she produces a key, which she hands to Daryl. "'Course, we don't have any car seats, but since traffic is pretty much non-existent, you should be fine." Daryl appreciates her attempt at humor, and gives her a half-smile as he starts to put the key into his jeans pocket.
Beth tucks her hand into his pocket, too, tangling her fingers with his. Rosita murmurs, "Gonna get back to Abraham," but Daryl hardly spares her a glance because Beth's nails are pressing into his hip just so. She slides the key out, her eyes glancing off his teasingly, and she scoots in front of him to unlock the car.
She opens the front door and pushes the button to unlock the back door, and then shimmies around him to open the back door. He knows she knows she has his full attention, but there is no way in hell they're alone enough for what her eyes're saying.
She climbs in the car, checking to see if the seat belts are intact. "Looks good," she says. As she starts to slide out, Daryl moves so he's blocking her in a bit. She gets her feet on the ground, straightens up to her full height, and backs herself right into him because he hasn't given her much room.
"Daryl," she says, elbowing him. "Back up."
She can't even quite turn around because of the way he placed his feet, on either side of hers. Sliding his hands around her waist, he tugs her back into him. "Don't wanna," he whispers, letting his lips find her earlobe. He loops his tongue around the soft part of her ear, and she arches against him so artfully, he instantly regrets doing it.
(Because he doesn't need a hard-on out here, where there is nothing they can do about it. Seriously. But he's never really been able to resist temptation when it comes to Beth.)
She says his name on a high pitched little whine, which makes it worse, so he buries his face in her neck. "'M sorry, that was fuckin' stupid."
She rubs her ass against him, and he can also feel her nodding her head. "I agree," she breathes, but she grabs one of his hands and drags it up to her breast, under her shirt. The sweet, hard little nub of her nipple is nearly enough to make him come in his jeans, for no reason other than he loves that she's there, just as quickly as he is. And that for all the things that have happened in the last few days, their connection, unspoken and powerful, remains so vivid, so delicious.
He edges the cup of her bra down, rubbing the side of his thumb back and forth against her nipple. Her breathing gets heavy with her arousal; the image that flashes through his mind ridiculously fast involves him yanking her jeans down, bending her over, shoving her back in the car, and climbing in behind her. He can practically feel the wet heat of her surrounding him; the zipper of his own jeans is a obstacle that is laughably easy to overcome.
(For like a split second, only in his head.)
Beth has a hand around his neck, her short nails digging into his skin and she gasps the Lord's name, a sure sign of a different kind of apocalypse. It's been less than a week since they were last together, but Daryl supposes when each time might be your last, it gets pretty fucking hot, pretty fucking fast.
"Daryl?"
Shep's voice cuts through it all more sharply than a double-edged knife, and while his dick doesn't go down immediately, he can at least let in a thought besides fucking Beth.
He eases himself back just a little and looks over his shoulder to see the kid standing there, with Jace on his hip. "Yeah, buddy?" he calls.
"I just wondered where you were. We got our shots, and Jace only cried a little bit."
Beth turns around, since there's room for her to do so now, drawing his gaze back to her. The grin on her face is the cutest thing Daryl's ever seen. An echoing expression fights its way on to his lips as well and he says to Shep, "That's cool, dude. Give me and Beth a minute here, okay? We'll come over there and make some food in a sec."
"Okay," the boy calls back, but he walks back around the tank slowly.
"He can see still us," Beth murmurs, leaning up to press her lips to his.
"So, no funny business?" Daryl asks, fighting to keep his expression serious.
"Not right now, I don't think so." She wraps her arms around his neck and squeezes him tight, giggling softly before sliding out from between him and the car. "Think about your grandma," she whispers, and he blows out a laughing breath. Resting his hands on the roof of the car, he hears her tell Shep as she rounds the corner of the tank, "Daryl just has to take care of couple things with the car. He'll be here in a minute."
He hadn't known in the beginning, but he learned very quickly that Beth's one wicked streak lay right here, in the power she has over him. Somehow, that's the thought that calms him down, relaxing his body. Because she wields it so delicately and so sweetly, it's nothing he wouldn't do anyway. Everything Beth wants, he wants, too.
He wonders if she wants him to give her a baby as much as he wants to give her one, even though they picked up two on the road.
(Fucking crazy, did he mention that?)
He rejoins the group, and they get busy with supper preparations. He manages to avoid making eye contact with Beth again until it's dark outside, that way if he gets hard again, no one can tell.
(Well, no one except Beth, who is provoking on purpose. In a way that thoroughly delights him.)
They start for D.C. early the next morning, and Beth insists that Daryl drives while Shep sits in the front seat.
She sits in the back with the baby, because even though she knows they'll go slow and careful, she just wants to be able to protect Jace if necessary.
For all that it's taken six days to wander around and find two children, they hit the city gates within an hour of leaving their company. As they drive back in and the guards at the gate ask what's up, the knot of fear in her belly gets tighter.
She knows Maggie will forgive her, eventually. But she also knows that the initial confrontation might be pretty spectacular. She doesn't want Shep and Jace's first time seeing her sister to be scary, so she leaves them at the house with Daryl while she goes to her sister's alone.
It's just dumb luck that Maggie's even home, but Beth takes it as sign that she's supposed to deal with this now and get it out of the way. As soon as her sister opens the door and sees Beth standing there, she starts crying, waves her hands about pregnancy hormones, and then grabs Beth in a tight hug. "You're in big, big trouble," she gushes, but it doesn't sound very dangerous, so Beth holds on just as tight and apologizes over and over again.
"Too long with Daryl," Maggie mutters, dragging Beth into the house. She shuts the front door and pulls on Beth's arm until they are sitting on the sofa in the living room.
"What?" Beth asks, unsure what that means.
"You don't talk like you used to. I was just telling Glenn, it's being with Daryl, you've grown quiet. Being with him has changed you."
Beth contemplates that for a long moment, and then reaches for Maggie's hand. She returns the pressure of her sister's hard grip, squeezing tightly while nodding her head. "I have changed, Maggie, but none of it's bad. I didn't tell you because I didn't want ruin your happiest day. But me and Daryl, we'd already weighed all the possibilities. He's my partner, you know. He's the one I talk to. I don't come to you anymore with all those things, not because I don't love you, but because life shifted. You know, you have Glenn." She jostles Maggie a little, until her sister's eyes come up to hers. "He's the one who I'll make all my choices with now, and sometimes that might leave you out of the loop." Maggie's eyes fill with more tears, and the pain in Beth's chest increases. "I'm sorry I didn't say goodbye, but we're back now."
Maggie shakes her head. "I'm not crying about that. I'm crying about how you're all grown up and even though I knew it, I tried hard not to notice. It was one thing, buying condoms in the grocery store, or taking you to get birth control; those are things big sisters should do, you know? But accepting that you're grown up like this...that's harder."
Beth can see their father in Maggie right at that moment, and she understands, at least a little bit. But then she tells Maggie about Shep and Jace, the whole thing, even the moment where she thinks she saw a glimpse of the future, Daryl with his two "sons."
"Your sons," Maggie says softly. "Yours, too. You ready to be a momma?"
"Are you?" Beth asks.
Maggie gives a watery laugh and blows out a "woo-eee" breath. "Maybe we can get there together. With Glenn and Daryl."
Beth says that's the best idea she's heard all day.
Shep settles in okay, but Daryl's still skeptical. He watches him covert-like, because he never wants the boy to feel scrutinized, but at the same time, he knows what it's like to be feral. He didn't just relax into it overnight, himself.
Of course, he was over 30 years old when all that happened. Shep's just thirteen, and in some ways, despite the dirty mouth he displays when he's frightened, is more like Beth than Daryl or Merle. He likes to laugh, especially if it involves doing something that makes Jace laugh, and Daryl never knew how contagious it could be until he heard a baby giggle uncontrollably.
He had never been happier in his life than during his time with Beth, but he's never laughed this much, ever, over the dumbest shit imaginable.
Carol graciously moves out, finding a smaller place for herself, and Michonne finally takes the plunge with Rick. And all of a sudden, Daryl's living in a house with a woman who acts like a wife, and two kids who act like kids, and he wakes up sweating in the middle of the night because he has an actual fucking family, like the kind that always showed up in pictures of "a normal life" and he wonders how the hell it happened to him.
"You okay, baby?" comes Beth's soft voice as he throws his legs over the edge of the bed, trying to catch his breath.
Her hand grazes the small of his bare back, and his tension starts to ebb a little. "Yeah," he mutters. "Just a dream."
He feels the bed shift behind him as she sits up, and light floods the room as she flicks the lamp on. Then she's winding herself around him, one arm looped over his shoulder while the other one slides under the opposite arm. She presses her lips to the soft skin behind his ear, rocking him bit, as she sings a line from a lullaby she's taken to singing to Jace.
"When're you gonna marry me?" he asks, surprising them both. He feels Beth's gasp at the same moment her arms tighten around him convulsively.
"Whenever you want," is her soft reply, though, because Beth is always the calm one.
He can feel her heart thumping wildly against his back, and it makes the blood start flowing hotly to all those places in his own body.
He scoots around, pulling her on to his lap. They don't sleep naked anymore, not when kids wake up in the middle night, and just come walking in at any time, but the nightshirt she's wearing slides up her thighs easily as she straddles him. A knowing smile plays on her lips as she rubs them over his. "We're gonna start something here, and then there will be a cryin' baby, you know."
Daryl realizes he'd probably been half-hard when he woke up so suddenly, but with her response to his question and then putting herself in his lap, he's totally ready to go. They haven't had much luck since they'd been back in D.C., all of two weeks now, but every time they'd tried to have some alone time, they had been interrupted one way or another.
Just two nights previous, he'd been about to shove himself inside her when the baby started crying and it startled him so much that he'd lost the mood entirely. Beth had laughed good-naturedly as she got up to go get Jace, patting his leg as she said, "No worries that we're gonna have three kids any time soon."
Now, he pulls back from her and puts a finger to her lips, shushing her. Then he nudges his hips up into hers a little and Beth reaches down to free him from the confines of the pajama pants she had made him start sleeping in. When he hisses in excitement as her hand surrounds his cock, she whispers, "Shhhhh."
Then she lifts herself up and comes right down on him, and he is a thousand times hotter instantly because she'd been in his bed with no panties on. He wants to ask her if she comes to bed in just the nightshirt every night, but he can't make a sound; not when her mouth opens over his and her tongue thrusts forward in rhythm with their lower bodies. He suppresses a groan in his chest, but doesn't last long at all, because he never does when Beth's on top anyway, plus, it's been a while. She clenches around him, arms, legs, and hot little pussy, everything all at once, and he's glad at least that he didn't leave her behind.
It's just peaceful between them for a while, quiet while Beth's head rests on his shoulder. Only a few minutes go by, though, before they hear to squeak of Jace from the next room over. Beth tenses slightly, and they wait to see if it will be a full-on cry. When he starts wailing, Beth climbs off Daryl, but gives him one long, lingering kiss. "Good thing we're good at quickies," she whispers before walking from the room.
When she comes back to their bed with a squiggly baby, he tucks them both in real close. Thinks about what a fucking lucky bastard he really is, and once Jace drifts back to sleep, so does Daryl, one thought traipsing through his head.
It's funny how the things that are best for you can terrify the shit out of you, how in another life, he would have run from this so hard and fast.
And now, he wouldn't have it any other way.
The day Beth Greene marries Daryl Dixon ("So, are you gonna stop calling me Greene once I become a Dixon?" she asked), when it's time for toasts and speeches and all that, Glenn and Maggie deliver beautifully.
Maggie is seven months pregnant, and more lovely than Beth can ever remember her being, even though her entire life she has always thought her sister was the most gorgeous creature who ever lived. They all cry, but Beth is determined to be in control of her emotions, because she wants to give Daryl a special wedding gift.
Maggie helps with that, handing the microphone to Beth. A guy Daryl and Maggie work with plays the guitar, and he'd been invited to the wedding solely for this purpose.
Daryl is holding Jace, and Shep is sitting beside him (in a matching suit that makes him so adorable, Beth had cried when she saw him) at the table when Beth stands up and moves to the front of the room. "Hi, everyone," Beth says. "Thanks for being here for our special day." She clears her throat, surprised at how nervous she feels. She wasn't worried about marrying Daryl at all, and everything has been perfect all day, but this, this is the hard moment for her.
Maybe she has become more like Daryl, more private, less willing to put everything out there for everyone to see. But today, it's important to her to do just that.
She clears her throat again. "A lot of you know our story, how we got separated and then found each other again. What a lot of you might not know, is that some really hard things happened to me when I was separated from Daryl. And it was the memory of him, the knowledge I had of what I meant to him, and what he meant to me, that helped get me through that. And when I thought I'd never see him again, I wrote this song. About him, about us."
She looks around the room, but then focuses on her husband, who is already blinking rapidly, and she hasn't uttered a note of the song. She quickly looks away, clears her throat again, and says, "I always wanted to be a singer, and my husband says if that's what I want, I should do it. So I want to sing for you all today, but mostly I wanna sing for him. Because if it weren't for him, I wouldn't be so happy, I wouldn't have such a full life. And I'm not gonna look at him while I do it, so hopefully it will sound okay!"
A soft rumble of laughter rolls through the room as Beth turns to Mickey, the guitarist. She gives him a nod, and he strums the first notes out.
She sings like nobody's watching, but everyone is.
Daryl hangs his wedding photo, one of him, Beth, Shep, and Jace on the wall next to Beth's spoon. "Hey, Greene," he calls. "Is this straight?"
It's on the living room wall now that this is just the Dixon house. He'd moved it from their bedroom to the living room the same day Carol and Michonne moved out.
Beth pops in from the kitchen, Jace on her hip. "Yes," she says. "It's straight, but maybe put the picture up slightly, like, they don't have to be side by side like that. Shep!" she hollers.
"I'm right here, Mom," he says, and they turn to see him sitting on the sofa. He's reading a damn book, which Daryl thinks is a little weird, but is also a point of pride. His adopted son likes to read. For fun.
"Help him hang that up," she says, pointing towards Daryl, as if it's obvious he would never be able to do it right.
Shep sets his book aside and walks over to where Daryl's standing. "What's that?" he asks, pointing at the spoon.
So, Daryl tells him. It had been his hope and faith, his destruction and his misery. It had put him on a path that led to all these things, including Shep and Jace.
"It's a Dixon family heirloom," he summarizes.
"Can I hold it?" Shep asks.
Daryl takes it out of its glass case and hands it over. As the boy runs his fingers along its edges, examining it closely, Daryl imagines passing it down, the way a real heirloom would. "This is so cool," Shep says. He looks up at Daryl. "But Mom's right, the picture should go above it, you know? Instead of them being side by side, the picture should sit above it, like this." Shep puts the spoon back in its case and holds it up against the wall, right beneath the framed photo. "See? Looks better."
It's silly, but it chokes him up for some reason. All of it. His life.
He doesn't even know anymore, how to contain all the happiness he feels. It just spills over everywhere, into everything.
As he nods his head at the boy, Daryl puts his hand on Shep's shoulder, squeezing it.
fin
Author: badboy_fangirl
Fandom: The Walking Dead
Characters/Pairings: Daryl & Beth POV; Daryl/Beth; with appearances by everyone else.
Word Count: ~4000
Rating/Warnings: NC-17 / Spoilers through all of season four.
Summary: Because it's just a matter of time now:
And a video that I just found that's exactly all the moments that caused me to write all of this. If in anyway I conveyed the magic of them, I'm well pleased. It's been a journey for me as well. I thought this chapter might end up being really long, but ultimately it didn't feel right to drag it out. Daryl and Beth are minimalists, it just works for them. So I hope this works for you. Thank you for all the love. I hope this story made the hiatus a little more bearable! Bring on Season 5!
Click to viewAuthor's notes: This is a companion/continuation fic to Empty Handed and Holding On. The opening quote for this chapter is lifted from the song "Tell Me a Story" by Phillip Phillips. Previous chapters: [1] [2] [3] [4]
Just pieces of a puzzle
He never thought this would happen.
Living dead things. Loving a girl. Saving some kid.
(Some kids.)
He never thought taking on the responsibility of those kids would bring such relief to him, that a weight would lift off his shoulders in a way that as they walk through the forest he feels like his feet aren't quite touching the ground.
By the time they get back to the encampment Lou is up and walking around. The bite on his neck doesn't look so good and it's tender to the touch, but he's not sick. "Feel a lot better now than I did 'bout six hours ago," he says, giving a weak grin, but a grin all the same.
Bob looks plumb tickled. His doctorin', as it were, had this result, something that could further impact the saving of the world. He should be proud, he really should, so Daryl says that and claps Bob on the back. Bob's smile is bigger than any expression Daryl's ever seen on the guy's face.
That's when Shep tugs on his arm. "There's a Cure? It fixes the dead people?" he asks.
Glancing down at the kid, who has practically attached himself to Daryl's hip (which, strangely enough doesn't bother Daryl at all), he motions towards Bob. "Yeah, as a matter of fact, Bob's the one who gives the shots to everyone. That's what we're doing out here, looking for people like you'n Jace, so we can give 'em the shot, the one that keeps ya from becoming a Walker. You interested?"
Shep's brown eyes narrow some as he looks back and forth between Bob and Daryl, and then over at Lou who happens to be being hugged by Beth at the moment. "Shots hurt," he states, though it doesn't seem to be a positive or a negative thing from his tone.
"Yeah, there's a bit of a pinch," Bob says. "But it will be over like that," he snaps his fingers. "And then you and your brother will be safer. Seem like a good idea?" Daryl has his own urge to disperse hugs as he watches Bob's simplistic approach work with the boy.
Jace is wiggling against Daryl's chest, his little arms and legs moving excitedly, and Shep reaches up, putting his hand flat over the baby's small torso. His eyes meet Daryl's and Daryl just gives him a small nod. The boy clears his throat. "I think so, yeah," he says. "We both better have it."
Bob and Sasha take the baby from Daryl and Shep goes with them over to the small area that had been set up as a triage. Daryl squeezes Shep's shoulder before he walks away, telling him he's just going over to talk to Abraham about what vehicle they'll be taking the next day.
As Daryl moves towards where Rosita and Abraham are standing, leaned up against one of the tanks in their convoy, Beth falls into step beside him. "Y'think Shep's gonna stick it out this time?" she asks in a quiet voice, sliding her arm through his.
His chest gets tight, just at the way her arm curls around his, the way her feet fall into rhythm with his. Every day is a lesson on how he can love Beth Greene more than the previous one somehow. He reaches over with his other hand, wrapping his fingers around hers. "I think so. I think the sooner we get him away from some of these people and just have him with us, the better. Any skittishness is gonna be more about these assholes who tried to hurt him than anything else."
Beth's lips quirk up as they near Abraham. "Prime suspect number one," she mutters, and Daryl presses his lips into a grim line.
He doesn't make any small talk, he just leads with, "So, which car you givin' us?"
Abraham sighs dramatically, but then nudges Rosita, pointing to a cloth bag lying on the tire of the tank. Daryl's consolation to the vague throbbing in his nasal cavity is the fact that Abe's left eye is rapidly swelling shut. Rosita leads them around the tank to a white Mazda that's parked on the other side, out of sight of the camp. After she digs through the cloth bag, she produces a key, which she hands to Daryl. "'Course, we don't have any car seats, but since traffic is pretty much non-existent, you should be fine." Daryl appreciates her attempt at humor, and gives her a half-smile as he starts to put the key into his jeans pocket.
Beth tucks her hand into his pocket, too, tangling her fingers with his. Rosita murmurs, "Gonna get back to Abraham," but Daryl hardly spares her a glance because Beth's nails are pressing into his hip just so. She slides the key out, her eyes glancing off his teasingly, and she scoots in front of him to unlock the car.
She opens the front door and pushes the button to unlock the back door, and then shimmies around him to open the back door. He knows she knows she has his full attention, but there is no way in hell they're alone enough for what her eyes're saying.
She climbs in the car, checking to see if the seat belts are intact. "Looks good," she says. As she starts to slide out, Daryl moves so he's blocking her in a bit. She gets her feet on the ground, straightens up to her full height, and backs herself right into him because he hasn't given her much room.
"Daryl," she says, elbowing him. "Back up."
She can't even quite turn around because of the way he placed his feet, on either side of hers. Sliding his hands around her waist, he tugs her back into him. "Don't wanna," he whispers, letting his lips find her earlobe. He loops his tongue around the soft part of her ear, and she arches against him so artfully, he instantly regrets doing it.
(Because he doesn't need a hard-on out here, where there is nothing they can do about it. Seriously. But he's never really been able to resist temptation when it comes to Beth.)
She says his name on a high pitched little whine, which makes it worse, so he buries his face in her neck. "'M sorry, that was fuckin' stupid."
She rubs her ass against him, and he can also feel her nodding her head. "I agree," she breathes, but she grabs one of his hands and drags it up to her breast, under her shirt. The sweet, hard little nub of her nipple is nearly enough to make him come in his jeans, for no reason other than he loves that she's there, just as quickly as he is. And that for all the things that have happened in the last few days, their connection, unspoken and powerful, remains so vivid, so delicious.
He edges the cup of her bra down, rubbing the side of his thumb back and forth against her nipple. Her breathing gets heavy with her arousal; the image that flashes through his mind ridiculously fast involves him yanking her jeans down, bending her over, shoving her back in the car, and climbing in behind her. He can practically feel the wet heat of her surrounding him; the zipper of his own jeans is a obstacle that is laughably easy to overcome.
(For like a split second, only in his head.)
Beth has a hand around his neck, her short nails digging into his skin and she gasps the Lord's name, a sure sign of a different kind of apocalypse. It's been less than a week since they were last together, but Daryl supposes when each time might be your last, it gets pretty fucking hot, pretty fucking fast.
"Daryl?"
Shep's voice cuts through it all more sharply than a double-edged knife, and while his dick doesn't go down immediately, he can at least let in a thought besides fucking Beth.
He eases himself back just a little and looks over his shoulder to see the kid standing there, with Jace on his hip. "Yeah, buddy?" he calls.
"I just wondered where you were. We got our shots, and Jace only cried a little bit."
Beth turns around, since there's room for her to do so now, drawing his gaze back to her. The grin on her face is the cutest thing Daryl's ever seen. An echoing expression fights its way on to his lips as well and he says to Shep, "That's cool, dude. Give me and Beth a minute here, okay? We'll come over there and make some food in a sec."
"Okay," the boy calls back, but he walks back around the tank slowly.
"He can see still us," Beth murmurs, leaning up to press her lips to his.
"So, no funny business?" Daryl asks, fighting to keep his expression serious.
"Not right now, I don't think so." She wraps her arms around his neck and squeezes him tight, giggling softly before sliding out from between him and the car. "Think about your grandma," she whispers, and he blows out a laughing breath. Resting his hands on the roof of the car, he hears her tell Shep as she rounds the corner of the tank, "Daryl just has to take care of couple things with the car. He'll be here in a minute."
He hadn't known in the beginning, but he learned very quickly that Beth's one wicked streak lay right here, in the power she has over him. Somehow, that's the thought that calms him down, relaxing his body. Because she wields it so delicately and so sweetly, it's nothing he wouldn't do anyway. Everything Beth wants, he wants, too.
He wonders if she wants him to give her a baby as much as he wants to give her one, even though they picked up two on the road.
(Fucking crazy, did he mention that?)
He rejoins the group, and they get busy with supper preparations. He manages to avoid making eye contact with Beth again until it's dark outside, that way if he gets hard again, no one can tell.
(Well, no one except Beth, who is provoking on purpose. In a way that thoroughly delights him.)
They start for D.C. early the next morning, and Beth insists that Daryl drives while Shep sits in the front seat.
She sits in the back with the baby, because even though she knows they'll go slow and careful, she just wants to be able to protect Jace if necessary.
For all that it's taken six days to wander around and find two children, they hit the city gates within an hour of leaving their company. As they drive back in and the guards at the gate ask what's up, the knot of fear in her belly gets tighter.
She knows Maggie will forgive her, eventually. But she also knows that the initial confrontation might be pretty spectacular. She doesn't want Shep and Jace's first time seeing her sister to be scary, so she leaves them at the house with Daryl while she goes to her sister's alone.
It's just dumb luck that Maggie's even home, but Beth takes it as sign that she's supposed to deal with this now and get it out of the way. As soon as her sister opens the door and sees Beth standing there, she starts crying, waves her hands about pregnancy hormones, and then grabs Beth in a tight hug. "You're in big, big trouble," she gushes, but it doesn't sound very dangerous, so Beth holds on just as tight and apologizes over and over again.
"Too long with Daryl," Maggie mutters, dragging Beth into the house. She shuts the front door and pulls on Beth's arm until they are sitting on the sofa in the living room.
"What?" Beth asks, unsure what that means.
"You don't talk like you used to. I was just telling Glenn, it's being with Daryl, you've grown quiet. Being with him has changed you."
Beth contemplates that for a long moment, and then reaches for Maggie's hand. She returns the pressure of her sister's hard grip, squeezing tightly while nodding her head. "I have changed, Maggie, but none of it's bad. I didn't tell you because I didn't want ruin your happiest day. But me and Daryl, we'd already weighed all the possibilities. He's my partner, you know. He's the one I talk to. I don't come to you anymore with all those things, not because I don't love you, but because life shifted. You know, you have Glenn." She jostles Maggie a little, until her sister's eyes come up to hers. "He's the one who I'll make all my choices with now, and sometimes that might leave you out of the loop." Maggie's eyes fill with more tears, and the pain in Beth's chest increases. "I'm sorry I didn't say goodbye, but we're back now."
Maggie shakes her head. "I'm not crying about that. I'm crying about how you're all grown up and even though I knew it, I tried hard not to notice. It was one thing, buying condoms in the grocery store, or taking you to get birth control; those are things big sisters should do, you know? But accepting that you're grown up like this...that's harder."
Beth can see their father in Maggie right at that moment, and she understands, at least a little bit. But then she tells Maggie about Shep and Jace, the whole thing, even the moment where she thinks she saw a glimpse of the future, Daryl with his two "sons."
"Your sons," Maggie says softly. "Yours, too. You ready to be a momma?"
"Are you?" Beth asks.
Maggie gives a watery laugh and blows out a "woo-eee" breath. "Maybe we can get there together. With Glenn and Daryl."
Beth says that's the best idea she's heard all day.
Shep settles in okay, but Daryl's still skeptical. He watches him covert-like, because he never wants the boy to feel scrutinized, but at the same time, he knows what it's like to be feral. He didn't just relax into it overnight, himself.
Of course, he was over 30 years old when all that happened. Shep's just thirteen, and in some ways, despite the dirty mouth he displays when he's frightened, is more like Beth than Daryl or Merle. He likes to laugh, especially if it involves doing something that makes Jace laugh, and Daryl never knew how contagious it could be until he heard a baby giggle uncontrollably.
He had never been happier in his life than during his time with Beth, but he's never laughed this much, ever, over the dumbest shit imaginable.
Carol graciously moves out, finding a smaller place for herself, and Michonne finally takes the plunge with Rick. And all of a sudden, Daryl's living in a house with a woman who acts like a wife, and two kids who act like kids, and he wakes up sweating in the middle of the night because he has an actual fucking family, like the kind that always showed up in pictures of "a normal life" and he wonders how the hell it happened to him.
"You okay, baby?" comes Beth's soft voice as he throws his legs over the edge of the bed, trying to catch his breath.
Her hand grazes the small of his bare back, and his tension starts to ebb a little. "Yeah," he mutters. "Just a dream."
He feels the bed shift behind him as she sits up, and light floods the room as she flicks the lamp on. Then she's winding herself around him, one arm looped over his shoulder while the other one slides under the opposite arm. She presses her lips to the soft skin behind his ear, rocking him bit, as she sings a line from a lullaby she's taken to singing to Jace.
"When're you gonna marry me?" he asks, surprising them both. He feels Beth's gasp at the same moment her arms tighten around him convulsively.
"Whenever you want," is her soft reply, though, because Beth is always the calm one.
He can feel her heart thumping wildly against his back, and it makes the blood start flowing hotly to all those places in his own body.
He scoots around, pulling her on to his lap. They don't sleep naked anymore, not when kids wake up in the middle night, and just come walking in at any time, but the nightshirt she's wearing slides up her thighs easily as she straddles him. A knowing smile plays on her lips as she rubs them over his. "We're gonna start something here, and then there will be a cryin' baby, you know."
Daryl realizes he'd probably been half-hard when he woke up so suddenly, but with her response to his question and then putting herself in his lap, he's totally ready to go. They haven't had much luck since they'd been back in D.C., all of two weeks now, but every time they'd tried to have some alone time, they had been interrupted one way or another.
Just two nights previous, he'd been about to shove himself inside her when the baby started crying and it startled him so much that he'd lost the mood entirely. Beth had laughed good-naturedly as she got up to go get Jace, patting his leg as she said, "No worries that we're gonna have three kids any time soon."
Now, he pulls back from her and puts a finger to her lips, shushing her. Then he nudges his hips up into hers a little and Beth reaches down to free him from the confines of the pajama pants she had made him start sleeping in. When he hisses in excitement as her hand surrounds his cock, she whispers, "Shhhhh."
Then she lifts herself up and comes right down on him, and he is a thousand times hotter instantly because she'd been in his bed with no panties on. He wants to ask her if she comes to bed in just the nightshirt every night, but he can't make a sound; not when her mouth opens over his and her tongue thrusts forward in rhythm with their lower bodies. He suppresses a groan in his chest, but doesn't last long at all, because he never does when Beth's on top anyway, plus, it's been a while. She clenches around him, arms, legs, and hot little pussy, everything all at once, and he's glad at least that he didn't leave her behind.
It's just peaceful between them for a while, quiet while Beth's head rests on his shoulder. Only a few minutes go by, though, before they hear to squeak of Jace from the next room over. Beth tenses slightly, and they wait to see if it will be a full-on cry. When he starts wailing, Beth climbs off Daryl, but gives him one long, lingering kiss. "Good thing we're good at quickies," she whispers before walking from the room.
When she comes back to their bed with a squiggly baby, he tucks them both in real close. Thinks about what a fucking lucky bastard he really is, and once Jace drifts back to sleep, so does Daryl, one thought traipsing through his head.
It's funny how the things that are best for you can terrify the shit out of you, how in another life, he would have run from this so hard and fast.
And now, he wouldn't have it any other way.
The day Beth Greene marries Daryl Dixon ("So, are you gonna stop calling me Greene once I become a Dixon?" she asked), when it's time for toasts and speeches and all that, Glenn and Maggie deliver beautifully.
Maggie is seven months pregnant, and more lovely than Beth can ever remember her being, even though her entire life she has always thought her sister was the most gorgeous creature who ever lived. They all cry, but Beth is determined to be in control of her emotions, because she wants to give Daryl a special wedding gift.
Maggie helps with that, handing the microphone to Beth. A guy Daryl and Maggie work with plays the guitar, and he'd been invited to the wedding solely for this purpose.
Daryl is holding Jace, and Shep is sitting beside him (in a matching suit that makes him so adorable, Beth had cried when she saw him) at the table when Beth stands up and moves to the front of the room. "Hi, everyone," Beth says. "Thanks for being here for our special day." She clears her throat, surprised at how nervous she feels. She wasn't worried about marrying Daryl at all, and everything has been perfect all day, but this, this is the hard moment for her.
Maybe she has become more like Daryl, more private, less willing to put everything out there for everyone to see. But today, it's important to her to do just that.
She clears her throat again. "A lot of you know our story, how we got separated and then found each other again. What a lot of you might not know, is that some really hard things happened to me when I was separated from Daryl. And it was the memory of him, the knowledge I had of what I meant to him, and what he meant to me, that helped get me through that. And when I thought I'd never see him again, I wrote this song. About him, about us."
She looks around the room, but then focuses on her husband, who is already blinking rapidly, and she hasn't uttered a note of the song. She quickly looks away, clears her throat again, and says, "I always wanted to be a singer, and my husband says if that's what I want, I should do it. So I want to sing for you all today, but mostly I wanna sing for him. Because if it weren't for him, I wouldn't be so happy, I wouldn't have such a full life. And I'm not gonna look at him while I do it, so hopefully it will sound okay!"
A soft rumble of laughter rolls through the room as Beth turns to Mickey, the guitarist. She gives him a nod, and he strums the first notes out.
She sings like nobody's watching, but everyone is.
Daryl hangs his wedding photo, one of him, Beth, Shep, and Jace on the wall next to Beth's spoon. "Hey, Greene," he calls. "Is this straight?"
It's on the living room wall now that this is just the Dixon house. He'd moved it from their bedroom to the living room the same day Carol and Michonne moved out.
Beth pops in from the kitchen, Jace on her hip. "Yes," she says. "It's straight, but maybe put the picture up slightly, like, they don't have to be side by side like that. Shep!" she hollers.
"I'm right here, Mom," he says, and they turn to see him sitting on the sofa. He's reading a damn book, which Daryl thinks is a little weird, but is also a point of pride. His adopted son likes to read. For fun.
"Help him hang that up," she says, pointing towards Daryl, as if it's obvious he would never be able to do it right.
Shep sets his book aside and walks over to where Daryl's standing. "What's that?" he asks, pointing at the spoon.
So, Daryl tells him. It had been his hope and faith, his destruction and his misery. It had put him on a path that led to all these things, including Shep and Jace.
"It's a Dixon family heirloom," he summarizes.
"Can I hold it?" Shep asks.
Daryl takes it out of its glass case and hands it over. As the boy runs his fingers along its edges, examining it closely, Daryl imagines passing it down, the way a real heirloom would. "This is so cool," Shep says. He looks up at Daryl. "But Mom's right, the picture should go above it, you know? Instead of them being side by side, the picture should sit above it, like this." Shep puts the spoon back in its case and holds it up against the wall, right beneath the framed photo. "See? Looks better."
It's silly, but it chokes him up for some reason. All of it. His life.
He doesn't even know anymore, how to contain all the happiness he feels. It just spills over everywhere, into everything.
As he nods his head at the boy, Daryl puts his hand on Shep's shoulder, squeezing it.
fin