So like think about this: Rick is going to be so protective of Judith when she gets older; she's so precious to him. The last link, besides his wedding ring he can never seem to remove for very long, to Lori. She's been taken from him, and he will never experience that pain again.
As a seven year old it's hard for him to let Maggie and Glenn take her for one night, "You're looking so tired Rick, let us take her. We're just across the street, it's alright. You deserve it!" And Rick almost has a heart attack when Judith turns up missing one morning with blood in the bed and Daryl has to inform him Michonne took her off to have "the talk". "Rick, no girl wants to have that conversation with her old man!" At eighteen Judith wants to go to the cafeteria with the cute boy down the street. "Daddy, everyone else gets to go on dates! I'm eighteen. I'm older than half the people here. I'm an adult and I'm goin' on this date, dammit!" And Rick is so shocked he has nothing to say as she storms past him out the door.
But at six Daryl takes her hunting for the first time. "Rick, she's gotta learn." He had reasoned. "Be safe." Is all Rick had replied and Daryl blinks because...damn, he'd seen the way that Rick watched Judith's every move. How every time she'd gone from his sight Rick was a basket-case.
At eleven Daryl and Judith have a scheduled hunting night. Daryl knocks on the door one day, at the usual time. "Papa's here, I'm gonna go." Judith scrambles over her spindly child limbs towards the door, not quite realizing what she'd said, when asked about it later she had blushed and shrugged, looking down at her toes, curling under her. "I heard Daryl call Uncle Glenn it, it ain't a word I ever heard before. Pa-Daryl told me it was another word for what you are, Daddy!" And that's how Rick had found out Glenn and Maggie were expecting, his laugh was wet and his blue eyes were sparkling with mirth as he looked at his innocent daughter. Rick had just nodded and hugged her closely, whispering into her strawberry blonde hair, "you call him whatever you want to, sweetheart."
At thirteen, Judith has a lot of questions. She's curious about EVERYTHING and Aunt Carol knows a lot she's found out, but about boring stuff like what a cellphone is or how electricity works.
But Papa, he knows the important stuff, like how to skin an animal, and what kinda leaves you can wipe your ass with. How to set traps and how to get blood out of clothes. Daryl almost dropped his precious crossbow when Judith came running out to him that day, her thinning preteen face scrunched up like she'd been about to cry. "Papa! I woke up this morning with blood in my draws, I didn't do nothin' like cut myself or any of that."
Daryl had panicked and scooped her up, not caring that she had bled through her pants and he would have to wash his sleeve. Michonne was the first woman he'd come across and he had been glad it was her. She didn't have to ask questions. One look at Daryl's face and the distressed girl clinging to his jacket and she'd figured it out, taking the traumatized young woman with her into the woods, leaving her Papa equally traumatized staring after them.
Almost as soon as she turns eighteen, Rick shows up at his house looking wrecked at eight o'clock in the evening and Daryl chuckles and let's him through, passing him a beer, which Rick cracks open, downs half and says "Judith's got a boyfriend."
And through all this time Rick has come to see Daryl as Judith's father, her other parent and he realizes there is no one else in the world he would rather help him navigate this world. And as he sits on his back porch watching as Daryl shows their daughter how to use her very own pink, compound bow, it dawns on him that he has yet to acknowledge the feeling growing in his chest over the years; the warmth like the sun where his heart should be when Daryl turns to look at him with his playful, relaxed smirk.
And how stupid could he be to not realize it before?
That night when Judith is in bed, Rick and Daryl stand in their doorway, as they've done practically every night since they'd come to Alexandria, the safe haven that is too good to be true. Daryl is framed by the gas porch light shining behind his head like the warm rays of the sunshine in the darkness. Before he can stop himself Rick is leaning forwards, crowding Daryl against the doorjamb, pressing their bodies together; toe to chest. Daryl's strong hands catch Rick's biceps, but to his surprise, instead of being pushed away, Daryl yanks him closer and presses their lips together.
Rick's a wreck the next morning over coffee, and Michonne laughs at him. Laughs at him! The nerve of her. And she reveals she's known for years and he honestly couldn't figure it out? It would be funny if it wasn't so sad. Years, wasted Michonne! Wasted. Michonne shrugs in that wise way that she does, smiling over her steaming cup. I wouldn't quite say that.
Two years later, Daryl finally, officially, moves in, selling his little one room apartment across the small town. That first night, they have a big dinner, with the whole family coming together. Even Carl is has shown up, with the announcement that he and Sarah are expecting their first. Judith reports that she and Molly have settled in all right and the two best friends can't be happier moving away from their overbearing fathers. Abraham, Molly's overbearing father, hooks her into a noogie and clicks his tongue while Rick laughs and kisses the side of his daughter's head. He looks at the twentyish people that crowd into their rickety home, not built to accommodate so many at the end of the world, and he thinks that this is the first time that he has felt as much like the father, sheriff, husband, and good man that he since before all this had happened.
And when everyone has left and the house is quiet again, he falls asleep to the breathy snores coming from the man lying next to him, arm draped around his waist, who convinced him that living was about more than keeping yourself alive.
It is also about love, and hope, and family.