Just a short three-shot told from Luke, Hunter and Abby's POV. Sometimes, I get in these moods and I need to write something domestic.


1/3. Luke.

He always remembered the first night he ever spent inside of their house. He was four-years-old and the Sheriff had come to pick him up at the daycare center and Beth had asked him if he wanted to come stay with her and Daryl for the night. He had been so ecstatic, he had hardly been able to talk and he hadn't thought of where his parents were and why he wasn't going home to them that night. Even at four-years-old, he already didn't even care.

Beth and Daryl lived in the woods, far from anyone else in town, and Luke ran inside as soon as the Sheriff's car stopped, looking around, wanting to take it all in. It was small and warm and smelled sweet like a mixture of vanilla and pumpkins. And it was clean. He had never been inside of a house as clean before.

He helped Beth make dinner, standing on a stool and she showing him how to stir the pot of noodles, and he had two big plates of the beef casserole before Beth asked him if he would like to take a bubble bath and he had nearly gasped because he had never taken a bubble bath before in his life.

And that first night, and the nights after, he slept on their couch with a soft pillow underneath his head and warm blankets covering him. Daryl and Beth paid their heating bill so as it began getting colder outside, he didn't wake up in the mornings, curled into a little ball, shivering violently. Beth always made sure he had plenty of blankets – soft fleece that always smelled like dryer sheets – and sometimes, in the mornings, he actually woke up, feeling too hot.

He'd go to the daycare center every morning with Beth and he wasn't the smelly kid anymore who had to ignore all of the kids laughing at him. He smelled like soap and his stomach never grumbled with hunger. Daryl and Beth didn't have a lot of money and yet, they weren't poor in the same way his parents had been poor. They still were able to have a nice house and buy food and they took Luke to the Salvation Army store where they got him new jeans and tee-shirts and sweatshirts and even new tennis shoes.

He had never felt so spoiled. So loved. And he knew they loved him. Beth would tell him, hugging him close and kissing his head and telling him that she loved him. And Daryl didn't say it but he showed him how to hunt and he let him help him when he was working on his bike outside and when Luke tripped and cut his knee open, Daryl moved quickly, swinging him up into his arms and carrying him inside where he cleaned his cut and put a band-aid over it for him.

"I'm sorry," Luke sniffled, his eyes wet with tears and feeling so scared because he had ripped a hole in the jeans they had bought him.

Daryl was quiet but he put a hand on the side of his head so Luke looked at him. Daryl stared into his eyes and Luke saw nothing close to anger. "They're jus' jeans, Luke. As long as you're a'right."

Luke tried to not get comfortable. Daryl and Beth weren't his parents no matter how badly he wanted them to be. He wasn't a Dixon and this wasn't his home and he couldn't stay here forever. Even though every night as he laid on the couch, he closed his eyes and wished for more than anything that he could stay with them.

When Beth told him that she was going to have a baby, Luke smiled and was happy and excited and he had always wanted a little brother but he had to remind himself that this wasn't his little brother. It didn't matter that Daryl and Beth kept telling him that the baby was going to need him and they would need his help or that Daryl built an extra room onto their little house and put a bed in there for him and called it his room. It didn't matter that Daryl said he wasn't going anywhere.

Luke may have been little but he wasn't stupid. He couldn't stay because he didn't belong there. Eventually, his mom – his real mom – would get out and come and take him back and that would be that. This time living with Daryl and Beth would eventually fade and start to feel nothing like more than a dream.

And Luke was so scared of that happening. Every day, he braced himself, wondering if this would be the day when he was finally taken away from them.

After Hunter was born, he tried to keep himself back. Hunter was the Dixon. Not him. Hunter was Daryl and Beth's son. Not him. He was just a visitor and he'd be leaving soon. He didn't belong here and every time Daryl took him hunting or Beth bought him new crayons or colored pencils, Luke tried to remind himself that this was all temporary. He was a Ridgeway and Hunter was a Dixon and he tried to never think about how he was jealous of a little baby.

One morning in the fall, the weekend before Halloween, Beth had Luke sit down on the couch and she sat down on one side of him and Daryl sat down on the other and Luke had absolutely no idea what was going on but he could sense it was something.

"Luke, how would you like to stay here with us longer?" Beth then asked.

Luke just looked at her. He didn't even think that was a question he had to answer. How would he like it? He had been wishing for nothing else for almost two years now. Having to leave them was his greatest fear and all he wanted was to be able to stay here where he would be warm and full and safe. He would never ask for anything ever again if he could just have that one thing.

Daryl cleared his throat a little. "Beth and me are workin' on a way for you to."

Luke looked him and he began to feel something soar in his chest. "How?" He asked.

Beth smiled a put a hand on the back of his head and Luke saw her eyes wet with tears. "We'd like to adopt you, Luke," she said. "If you'd like that."

Luke stared at her and he could feel a pounding in his ears. If he'd like that?

And he felt tears brimming in his eyes and without answering either of them, he turned and threw his arms around Beth's neck and she laughed a little and hugged him close and he felt Daryl wrapping his arms around both of them.

Beth kissed his head and with her lips still in his hair, she whispered, "You're home now, Luke,", and Luke squeezed his eyes as tears leaked down his cheeks.

Daryl only let a few things pass but Luke knew that they had a lot in common. Not things that either of them wanted to necessarily remember but things all the same. If they were out in public and there was a loud noise – someone dropping a glass to the floor or someone shouting – they both flinched practically simultaneously and Luke thought he would grow out of always being scared but Daryl was a grown man and the bravest man he knew and if he still flinched, Luke knew he probably always would, too.

Hunter would never flinch though. He had no reason to. He had always had two parents who loved him and went to sleep every night in a safe house and never experienced pain or fear. But because he knew, because he had the same scars and flinched at the same noises, Luke thought that that's why Daryl took him out to the woods every weekend. It was something good and nice they could share together.

When Hunter was a little older, Daryl tried to take him out, too, with them to teach him how to hunt but Hunter was too loud and too impatient and despite his name, he had no interest in it. Luke would never say it but he was a little relieved with that because that meant that he and Daryl could still share it between just the two of them and even though Daryl and Beth had never acted like that and he had a new birth certificate that said his name was Luke Dixon, he guessed a part of him was still worried that Daryl and Beth would look to Hunter as their true son.

Luke told himself not to be stupid. He was their son. Even when he was still a Ridgeway, he knew he was already a Dixon.

And they loved him as much as he loved them.

Calling Beth "mommy" was easy and the first time he said it, it was when he had a cold and he was in bed and she brought him chicken noodle soup. She sat on the edge of the bed and spoon-fed him and she was so loving and caring, he felt an ache twist in his chest from the overwhelming emotion of it all.

"Thank you, mommy," he murmured once the bowl was empty and he was lying back down as she covered him with the blankets.

Beth looked at him for a moment with a small smile and tears in her eyes and she leaned in and kissed him on the forehead. "Sweet dreams," she whispered.

Calling Daryl "daddy" didn't come as easy. He had been calling him that in his head for so long but he didn't know if he would ever be able to say the word out loud. Hunter was already speaking a few broken words – "mama" and "dada" and "Uke" because he wasn't able to say the L yet – and the first time he said that to Daryl, there had been tears in Daryl's eyes and he had lifted Hunter up and hugged him tight, exhaling a shaky breath in an effort to keep himself from crying.

Luke wasn't sure how to call Daryl daddy. It was what he thought Daryl as and it wasn't as if he thought Daryl would get mad with him calling him that. The word just always seemed to clump in his throat and could never seem to get it out.

When he finally did say it, it was completely by accident.

He was in first grade now and there was an assignment. Draw your family. And it was Luke's favorite kind of assignment because already, he knew he loved to draw more than anything. He eagerly set about the task., grabbing a few crayons from the tin can in the center of the table and smoothing out the piece of white construction paper in front of him. Around him, the other students chattered and laughed as they worked on their own drawings but Luke was quiet, concentrating completely.

After school, he rode the yellow school bus each day and the driver knew he was to get off at the daycare center where Beth worked. Beth and Hunter were there and Daryl would come after he was done at his job and he would drive them all home.

This day, Luke eagerly ran inside and found Beth and showed her his drawing. The four of them standing outside of their little brown house surrounded by trees. Beth smiled and declared it to be the best drawing she had ever seen and she couldn't wait to get home so she could proudly hang it on the refrigerator's door.

And when Daryl came in later that evening, Luke showed him the drawing with just as much excitement as he had earlier because now, he actually had a family to draw and show his drawings off to.

"Look, daddy! You and mommy and Hunter and me!" He exclaimed gleefully and only after he said that did he realize what he had just said.

He stopped bouncing on his toes and looked up at Daryl to see what the man would think of it. But Daryl just smiled and took the picture from the boy's hands into his, looking it over.

"Yeah," Daryl nodded. "Looks jus' like me," he said and Luke went back to grinning.

Everything was overwhelming to him at first. When he first began living with them and then afterwards, when he was adopted and became officially a Dixon, every good thing that happened always made him take pause and he had to remind himself to keep breathing.

Every Christmas, spending the night at his grandparents' farm – because he now had grandparents – and going to church and waking up in the morning and seeing presents underneath the tree with his name on them and then eating a big Christmas feast of prime rib. Every birthday with Beth throwing him a party with balloons and a homemade cake and his friends coming over for pizza that Uncle Glenn brought and opening the presents. Even things like going to the dentist or doctor or getting his hair cut for the first time, he sometimes had to just stop and remind himself that this was his life now. Daryl and Beth had saved him and given him all of this and this life wasn't going anywhere. They had given him a life.

Beth loved to encourage his love of art. Daryl had built him his very own art easel and Beth always made sure that he had plenty of paper, paints, pencils and crayons to draw with. She took him to the library so he could check out the big books there of famous painters and their famous paintings and they ran out of room on the refrigerator because Beth wanted to hang absolutely every single one of his works.

Some nights, Luke had nightmares. Nightmares of him back in his old home with his old mom and dad and they were still beating him and he hurt all over and he was so hungry and scared and sore and he'd wake up with a gasp, his body covered in sweat. And he didn't think he had been loud but it seemed as if every time it happened, Daryl was coming him into the room. Luke had seen Daryl's back and he knew they had the same scars and he wondered if Daryl still had nightmares, too.

On those nights, Daryl came into the room and silently gestured for Luke to follow him. And with his heart still pounding and sweat matting down his hair, Luke pulled himself out of bed and followed him from the room and into the kitchen. He squinted his eyes as Daryl flipped on the small light above the sink and he sat down at the table as Daryl then poured out a saucepan of milk and heated it on the stove. Luke didn't say anything and Daryl didn't either but he sat there at the table with him as Luke drank his mug of warm milk and got his heart to beat normally again.

"Le's get you some fresh pajamas," Daryl said quietly and Luke nodded, setting his now empty glass down on the table.

"Thanks, dad," he said in a matching low voice and Daryl didn't say anything else but he put a hand on the back of Luke's head.

He didn't say anything but he didn't have to because he was there. He was always there and that's all Luke needed.

Molly Hamblin was his first friend. There were others that came over the years but Molly was always his best. She was the only one who had played with him while he was still a Ridgeway and Luke never forgot that.

They were the same age and living in a small town with an even smaller school, they were always in the same classroom and they were nearly inseparable as they grew. And because she was so important to Luke, she was important to Beth and Daryl, too, and they never had a problem when the girl came over in the afternoons after school because both of her parents worked and she didn't want to be alone. Luke went over to her house, often, too for school projects or studying for tests or jumping on the trampoline Molly got for her birthday. They used to have sleepovers, too, but when Molly turned eleven, both her mom and his mom said that the sleepovers couldn't happen anymore though they wouldn't say why.

As he grew older, he lost his baby fat in his face and his annoyingly curly hair seemed to tame down a bit and Beth had said more than once that he was growing into a very handsome young man – a comment that always made the tips of his ears turn red just like his dad's ears got when something was said that embarrassed him. But it seemed like Beth wasn't the only one to think that about him. In eighth grade, he started dating Mika Samuels and when he did, Molly didn't seem to be around as much as she used to be.

By now, they had moved into the white farmhouse from the little brown house in the woods – and Luke thought their house was the nicest, coolest house in town –and he came out of the backyard to find Beth in her vegetable garden and Daryl at the deep-freeze they had where they kept all of their hunted meat, sorting through it to see what they were running low on.

"I can't get a hold of her," Luke said with a frown.

"Maybe she's not home," Beth suggested logically.

"Where else would she be?" He asked and his frown grew deeper. "All her dad said was she couldn't come to the phone. She's ignoring me," he said, giving voice to the thought he had had buried in his mind, reluctant to think of as true but now there was no denying it. Molly was refusing to talk to him for some reason.

Beth stood up then and pulled her gardening gloves off. "I'm sure that's not true, Luke. Maybe she just really can't come to the phone right now."

"Mom!" Hunter then shouted from inside the house and Beth went to go see what was wrong this time.

Luke stood there, still frowning to himself, and he looked to Daryl and he closed the lid of the freezer and snapped the lock back into place, a piece of frozen meat in his hands. Daryl looked to him, too, and shrugged his shoulders.

"Don' look at me. I don't know anythin' 'bout women," he said.

"That's not true. How'd you get mom?" Luke asked.

"She took pity on me," Daryl answered.

"How did you get mom?" Luke asked, now curious.

Daryl let out a little sigh. "Jus' one of those things, I guess. We met and it made sense and the rest jus' kind of fell into place after that."

Luke knew there was probably a lot more to the story but if he wanted to hear it, he'd be better off going and asking Beth about it. Even if his dad wasn't such a quiet guy, Luke knew that there were some things Daryl wouldn't talk about. It was obvious to everyone that he was absolutely crazy about his wife; obvious even to his kids. There wasn't a single thing Daryl wouldn't do for Beth. He basically built this house for her even though she had never asked him to.

When Luke first came to live with them, he wasn't used to anything like Daryl and Beth. His parents were always fighting and screaming, telling they hate one another and threatening to kill one another. They had no glass in the house anymore because they had already thrown everything at one another, smashing it against the walls and the floors. Luke thought everyone was like that.

But then he saw Beth and Daryl Dixon and they didn't even fight. They had a couple of disagreements but never about anything important, it seemed, and it was always forgotten within a couple of hours. Beth was an affectionate person and was always hugging or kissing or touching Daryl in some way. And Luke knew Daryl was just like him. He wasn't used to all of that but he never pushed Beth away because Luke saw the way the man leaned into his wife. He wanted to get used to it.

"Can tell you one thing though," Daryl said and Luke looked to him, eagerly waiting for advice because his dad was the smartest guy he knew. "Mos' girls don' like bein' ignored," he said and with that, he took the meat into the house, leaving Luke alone.

Luke's brow furrowed at that. He hadn't been ignoring Molly though… had he?

That night, after dinner, he remained at the kitchen table to study for his history test that he had in school the next day and he really missed Molly because Molly was the absolute best in history. Hunter and Abby had carried their dishes to the sink and had left – Hunter racing back upstairs where he was working on some secret project and that made Daryl and Beth nervous because any moment now, they expected his bedroom to explode, and Abby went into the dining room, crawling back under the table where she usually had her dollhouse that Daryl had carved for her which she played with for hours every day.

Beth stood at the sink, humming to a song playing softly on the radio on the counter, and she was washing off dishes and loading them into the dishwasher and Daryl stood beside her, scooping leftovers into a plastic container – probably to be given to Uncle Merle tomorrow. Daryl always gave Uncle Merle the extra food because Daryl had said once that if he didn't, his older brother would forget to eat.

They didn't talk but they seemed to be in sync with one another. When he was done scooping the last of the food, he handed Beth the spoon and she rinsed it off before placing it in the dishwasher and she then reached into the cabinet, finding the appropriate lid for the container because Beth seemed to be the only one who was able to find the matching lids for the storage containers and she handed it to Daryl.

The house was quiet except for the occasional thud above their heads from Hunter's bedroom and the music on the radio. Sometimes, when it was quiet like this, Luke just wanted to close his eyes as if he was able to lose himself in the sound of nothing because even all of this time later of becoming a Dixon, he still couldn't get enough of how quiet it could sometimes be. And for a second, his eyes did slide shut and when he opened them again, they came into focus on Daryl leaning in and giving Beth a soft kiss on her lips and her eyes fluttered shut for a moment before they opened once more and they fell right on him and the smile she gave him made Luke lower his eyes from watching anymore.

Sometimes, they acted as if they were completely alone and Luke felt as if he was bursting in on what should be something private between them.

Without a word, he gathered his book and notebook, and slipping as quietly from his chair as he could, he left the kitchen and headed into the dining room. Daryl must have said something then because Beth's happy, gentle laughter followed after him. Luke didn't know if he would ever consider his dad to be a funny guy but to his mom, Daryl was the funniest guy in the world and he could always make her laugh.

Luke dropped to his knees and crawled underneath the table, joining Abby. She smiled at him and then continued playing quietly and Luke laid on his stomach, opening his book and trying to get back to studying about the Revolutionary War.

It was still quiet. Abby softly talking to herself as she arranged the dolls in the rooms of the house. A random heavy thud from the second floor. The crickets outside. And Beth's soft laughter trailing out once more from the kitchen.


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