Will Dixon was a just man. He was misunderstood but he never let his boys go without. Daryl was raised to be a good kid. To always listen, to learn from his mistakes, and to someday be a better man than his father had been. Beth Shay is being raised by a cracked out woman who had adopted Beth when her real family left her. As Beth and Daryl grow up next door to each other and take separate yet similar paths in life they have to learn how to survive in a world that doesn't understand them. Of course they were doing pretty well until the dead started walking.
If Beth and Daryl grew up together.
If they met before the apocalypse.
If Beth had a similar backstory as Daryl.
Warnings: Mentions of child abuse, violence, drug use, and other themes. Take caution when reading. Thank you.
Part 1
Beth Anne and the Twists of Fate
Will Dixon was not a man of many words. He liked hunting, eating, watching TV, smoking cigarettes, and drinking.
He also liked his two boys very much. 14 year old Merle with his blond hair and his sharp tongue and little Daryl with his mop of brown hair and sharp blue eyes. The three of them were, from an outside standpoint, what the definiton of a redneck family is. Raised off the land and consumed in the horrors of abuse.
One thing that not many would know about old Will Dixon was that he was a family man. He worked everyday of his life from the crack of dawn until it was dark so that he could provide for his boys. He wanted to make sure that they had everything that they needed in order to live a happy and healthy life.
Of course, like most adults, Will enjoyed his drink or two. He had only once lost his temper and smacked his son Daryl so hard that the 8 year old had seen stars. Will had sunk to the ground in front of his son and cried and cried saying that he was sorry over and over again. Merle had stood over him and thrown anything he got his hands on at his father yelling, "Don't ever touch my brother like that again!"
And he didn't.
Daryl had not been raised in a conventional way. Instead of learning how to read he was learning how to use a crossbow. Instead of going to school right away he was kept at home and allowed to watch educational television as a form of learning. Turns out he was a smart kid. Much smarter than the other Dixons in the family. He especially loved to read and Will tried his best to find cheap books.
When Leighanne Dixon died in a fire, taking the house and all of their belongings with her, they were forced to move on.
And now as Daryl and Merle stood in the front of their new home in Claxton, Georgia they realized that it was going to be very different from Atlanta.
"Why we gotta live in bumfuck no where, pa?" Merle asks as he helps drag boxes of their new belongings into the small house. Plastic dishes, cups, and utensils. Everything cheap and easily replaced.
"Watch your mouth, kid," Will said back before saying, "Cause we got to have a new outlook on life. Been living too easy up in Atlanta."
Merle rolled his eyes, "It's cause we poor ain't it."
"Boy, why you talkin' like that," Will demanded. He dropped a cardboard box on the ground in the too small kitchen and turned to 14 year old Merle. His eyes were big and blue full of mischief and defiance.
"Talk like I was taught," He says.
Will simply waved his hand at him, "Get the next box. And stop actin' like white trash. We're better than that."
Daryl stood on the dirt path staring at the new home. It was a shack. That was the only way he could describe it. A shack in a campground surrounded by shacks that looked just like it. The whole place screamed redneck and Daryl wouldn't be surprised if they fit right in.
The windows on the shack were peeling paint and the roof looked like it would collapse at a tap. They definitely were not in the city anymore and Daryl wasn't sure how he was going to fit in.
He caught movement from the house next door and looked over. Out stepped a little girl around his age, maybe a bit older. She was taller than him, but his daddy had told him that girls grew faster so he wasn't surprised.
She had a pile of messy blonde hair situated in a bun atop her much too large head. She turned to look at him. A giant black and blue bruise was wrapped around her eye causing her face to appear puffy and swollen.
She stared at Daryl with her big wide blue eyes and he couldn't help but stare back at her.
The house next door was in almost the same condition, if not worse, and Daryl wondered if she had it rough. From the giant bruise on her face he guessed that her ma or pa beat her something awful. He had seen it before in the faces of classmates at school. The look of uncertainty. A big brick wall wrapped around them to protect them from the outside world. This girl seemed different. She had a welcoming look in her eyes that surprised him.
"Hi," he said hopefully as he looked at the little ray of sunshine next to him.
"No body lived there for ever," she said gesturing towards his new home. Her voice sounded like bells and her accent was almost strange coming from a voice like that.
"Well now we are," Daryl responded.
"I see that," Her face melted into a warm smile. He felt his cheeks turning red under her stare. She had to be the prettiest girl in all of Georgia.
He heard the door to her house fly open and a shrill female voice bellow, "Beth Anne Com'ere!"
The girl didn't spare him another glance. She had jolted and ran back up to her house in a rush.
Daryl watched her go sadly. Wondering if her ma was going to hit her for talking to him. He felt suddenly guilty.
Merle came outside then, closing the door to the screened in porch with a thud.
"Got a lil' crush der, Darylina," He mocked then laughed loudly. He went to the truck and pulled another box off of the bed.
"You gon' help or stare at the lil' bitch's house all day?"
They both heard Will yell from inside, "Watch yer damn mouth, Merle!"
Daryl let himself think that this was going to be an interesting new arrangement.
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The next time Daryl saw Beth he was sitting in the screened in porch. He was running his new knife, that his dad had gotten him, over a stick of wood making bolts for his crossbow.
"Don't have 'nough money for more," his dad had said, "Not yet atleast." So he had taught Daryl how to make them.
Will was standing outside of the screen porch smoking a cigarette. It had become an unspoken agreement that there would no more smoking inside the house. Not after what had happened with their mother.
"Goin' into town today, boy," Will said looking over to Daryl.
He stopped running the knife over the wooden stick to look at his father.
"Can I come?" he asked excitedly.
Will smiled at him, "Maybe. Don' right think I can leave you two alone for too long. That brother o' yours has a sense of trouble 'bout him these days."
As if on queue Merle came out of the house and stepped into the small porched in area.
"I want to go huntin'," the blonde boy stated peering down at Daryl and his bolts.
"Well shit Darylina looks like you're gettin' good at that!" Merle said grabbed a finished bolt from off of the porch floor.
"Don't!" Daryl protested reaching for his bolt from his brother, who simply side stepped and continued to admire the freshly made bolt.
"Think I'll be keepin' this one," Merle said with a nasty grin. Daryl made a noise close to a whine or growl.
Before the two could get into a full blown fist fight Will was barking, "Hey! Merle I tol' you that you gotta make your own. Ain't lettin' you do shit the easy way no more. No need to bully Daryl for things," He took a drag of the cigarette then as an after thought said, "And watch your damn mouth, boy!"
Merle smiled wickedly, took the bolt in both hands and snapped it in half. Daryl watched with wide sad blue eyes.
"Why'd you do that?" Daryl asked angrily.
"Felt like it's all," Merle resplied with his angry smile.
The door to the house beside them swung open and out came little Beth Anne. Her hair was down today, only it was so knotted and unruly that she looked like it had gotten stuck in a cieling fan.
"Don't you come back to this damn house 'till that thing is gone, ya hear?" A woman yelled before the door to the home slammed closed. Will, Merle, and Daryl all watched with interest as small Beth Anne walked down the front porch an oversized orange cat in her arms.
She looked over at the Dixons and smiled.
"Y'all want a cat?" She asked brightly.
Will dropped his cigarette and crushed it to the ground. He looked at her with raised eyebrows.
"Don't have nothin' for a cat," He said empathetically as if that was enough to get her to stop asking. But it wasn't. If little Beth Anne was anything, she was stubborn.
She stepped forward and looked into the porch to Daryl.
"Please!" She begged looking at the 8 year old boy. Merle snorted, "Don't want yer damn cat, girl."
"Merle Dixon!" Will yelled looking at his son, "You watch that mouth, how many times I gotta tell you."
"Careful," Beth said looking to Merle, "Don't want a beatin'."
All three of them looked to Beth Anne in shock. She didn't seem to think that she had said anything wrong. Will finally examined the small child in front of him. She had a nasty black eye and a bruise forming on the opposite cheek. There were bruises on her upper arms where she had been grabbed and dragged and pulled. Her feet were bare and her clothes were ripped and ruined.
Will felt his heart break.
"Please take the cat mister," She said desperately, "My mama don't like cats. But I can't leave it out to die. I found it at the Mister Mark's office up front. He says somebody left it in the box outside and I says I would take care of it. I'm no liar, please take her, please!" Beth Anne was begging and the cat was fast asleep in her arms almost slipping out. It was a fat cat and Will worried that if he took it in that it would eat more than a normal cat eats.
"Been taken care of real well," Will said stepping forward and taking the cat from Beth Anne before her arms gave out.
He looked the fat cat over and then Daryl was coming out of the screened porch. He reached his hand out and pet the orange cat gently. It began to purr in Will's arms.
"He's real sweet," Daryl said with a toothy grin. Merle snorted from behind them, "We can keep 'er then when he got no food in the winter we can kill it and cook it up."
Will knew his son was only joking but he cast a warning look at him. Beth Anne seemed to be convinced that he was tellin' the truth. She stepped forward and tried to pry the cat away.
"No, No," Will said gently pushing her arms down, "We ain't gonna eat the cat. Merle's got a tongue on him these days." The door to the house slammed closed and Will knew that Merle had finally gone to fume in his room.
"We can keep 'em right dad?" Daryl asked with a smile looking up to his father with pleading blue eyes. Beth Anne had the same look on her face from where she stood behind Daryl. Will rolled his eyes and shrugged, "Yeah we will keep her. But we are gonn' have to get cat food." He looked down at Beth Anne and asked, "You know what cat's need?" She nodded feverently.
Will nodded, "Alright. Daryl grab this young lady a pair of shoes to borrow. She can come into town with us." He looked up to her house hesitantly. As if she read his mind Beth Anne chirped, "Mama won't notice I'm gone! I promise!"
When Daryl came back outside he had a small pair of Chuck Taylor's in his hand. One shoelace was black and the other white. He handed them to Beth Anne.
"Why they have two different shoe laces?" She asked confused. Daryl blushed a little and said, "My new pair has a white one and a black one. I liked both and couldn't decide which laces to use. So I used both."
Beth Anne smiled wide at Daryl and said, "I like that."
Will had a funny feeling that these two were going to get married some day. He smiled wide at the thought and ushered them to the pick up truck. "To town we go!" He said. Daryl and Beth Anne laughed behind him.
XXXxxxxXXXxxxxXXXxxxXXX
All summer Daryl and Beth Anne played in the peach grove near the edge of the park. Beth Anne would run around with her hair flying in blond waves behind her and Daryl would chase. He always caught her and they always fell to the ground in a puff of dust with laughter on their lips.
Beth Anne only seemed to eat when she was in the Dixon household. So Will made sure that when she came walking in every morning that there was an extra plate of food waiting for her.
"You're real nice Mister Dixon," She said happily as she would shove food into her mouth.
The summer passed uneventfully. The worst of it being when Beth Anne's mother had come crashing into the Dixon house screaming about her missing earring. Will tried to calm the woman down and get her to leave but she refused until her hands were on Beth Anne's hair and she was dragging the child out of the house.
Will wondered why nothing was getting done to help the poor girl. He had called the sheriff in town and the man only said, "Nothing we can do, sorry," Before hanging up on him. He wasn't sure what else he could do to help little Beth Anne other than simply keeping their front door open all summer, day and night, so she could come in and find refuge.
Summer had ended and school was going to begin again. Beth Anne had told Daryl that she was homeschooled so she wouldn't be seeing him at the elementary school. Daryl was sad at that but the idea of being in a new place where he wasn't known as the 'youngest Dixon' was going to be too great to not be excited about. Beth Anne only smiled when Daryl told her that he wished she could be there with him.
"My mama told me that life ain't fair sometimes," She said and shrugged. Daryl thought that that was awful smart coming from a 6 year old.
Will got to know Missy Shay more and more as the time passed. When school started again he picked up extra shifts at the mechanic shop in town and he would often see the dirty woman walking past the shop during the day. He asked one of his fellow mechanics what she was about and they simply said, "meth." Will felt sad at the thought.
Missy could be nice sometimes. Will had seen her once teaching Beth Anne to weed the garden outside one day. They were on their knees next to each other and Will could see the affection that the young mother held for her daughter. It made Will wonder how the same woman sitting outside in the garden with her daughter was the same lady that smoked meth and beat her daughter.
Will also began to notice that little Beth Anne held an air of maturity that most children don't have. She always had something clever to say and more often than not it started as, "My mama told me." Will wondered again and again about that woman but he never got around to trying to find out.
One day Daryl and Beth Anne were sitting in the peach grove. Their feet bare and Daryl's homework was sitting around them in piles of lined paper and math equations. Beth Anne was laying back and Daryl was laying beside her. They were staring up through the peach trees.
"You think theres a god up there?" Beth Anne asked as the sun came in and out of the branches.
Daryl shrugged, "If there is I wonder what he's doin'. Too busy for people like us I guess."
Beth turned her head to look at him, "Are we gonna be friends forever?" She asked.
"Yeah. Forever."
"Then I think he was looking out for us," She said sweetly, "He brought us together didn't he?"
Daryl was tempted to tell her that it was only a coincidence that they two had met and ended up being neighbors. But the sweet smile on her face made him bite his tongue. "Yeah," He said simply, "Guess he did."
"When we're older will you marry me, Daryl?" Beth Anne asked
Daryl turned bright red at that, "Should I be the one to ask?"
"Oh yeah," She said thoughtfully and returned her eyes to the peach trees.
"I'll marry you... someday," Daryl said softly in a chocked whisper. Beth Anne looked over at him and gave a bit smile her large blue eyes shining.
"I wish someday would come soon," Beth Anne said softly.
Daryl couldn't help but agree with her.
yay! New story!
I really love this idea of meeting before the apocolypse so I'm super excited to be working on this story.
Let me know what you think!
