AN: Wow, y'all—thanks for the alerts and favorites and reviews! I'm so sorry for the extreme delay in updating. I had a friend's wedding this weekend with lots of visits and travel. But I love to hear from you, so keep leaving reviews, or drop me a PM to introduce yourself if you're shy.
If you haven't seen the Carol and Merle deleted scene that hit the internet last week, please go look for it on YouTube. I think that scene might settle some of y'all's concern or frustration with Carol over the "she's seventeen" comment. Also, check my profile for songs of inspiration for this fic, if you're into that kind of thing.
xox - MJ
Disclaimer: All copyright and trademarked items mentioned herein belong to their respective owners. The remaining content is mine.
"I always assumed I'd have one a my own some day," I told Andrea, wrapping Judith up tight with a blanket after her mid-morning change.
Andrea watched as I propped Judith up against one of my shoulders. "Maybe you will," she said, and I shrugged in response. Judith was a sign of hope for us all, but I didn't really think she was meant to show me that I'd have all the things in my life I'd always dreamed of having.
Andrea smiled, watching me start to clear away the surface up in Daryl's perch that sometimes served as Judith's changing area. She was such a beautiful, confident, and independent woman. I didn't think we were alike or anything, but I thought she might have some advice on what had me in a tizzy, so I had started spending time with her whenever I could.
I wondered if Andrea had ever been confused about her feelings for a guy. I especially wondered about what happened with the Governor in the end. When I learned she'd killed him, my confusion about how she could sleep with him to begin with grew considerably.
Maybe she had been using him the whole time. That thought made me uneasy, even in this new world, but I knew that we all had to do what we all had to do. Even though I could never imagine doing such a thing, her choices and actions saved us all, so I wasn't going to judge. It was one of the many examples of why I didn't know if I could ever be truly strong.
"She sure is gettin' to be a armful, isn't she?" I laughed, shifting Judith to my other shoulder with both hands, as I worked to straighten Daryl's area just the way I knew he liked.
Andrea's smile burst across her face and she reached out. "I can take her for a little while if you'd like," she said, and I gladly handed Judith over to her.
I could remember a time when Maggie didn't much like Andrea because of something I had done after Andrea tried helping me out, but I'd accepted that this life would be harder than the old one and promised my family that I wouldn't leave. It wasn't Andrea's fault she tried to help me; she was just treating me like an adult, after all—something that no one else had really ever done at that point. Still, I was grateful to her, and I wanted her opinion, no matter what my sister thought.
"You're an amazing young woman, Beth." Andrea spoke quietly as she watched me fold and put away the few pieces of clothing we had for Judith. "You should be very proud."
I felt myself blush under her praise. She'd called me a woman, even. I didn't quite know how to take what she was saying.
"Your whole family—you're all incredibly strong people," she said.
I agreed that Maggie was strong, and Daddy had been through Hell and back, even before the world ended. I was growing into my place among our group, for sure, but I wouldn't have said I was incredibly strong or amazing.
"Well, I know I'm no warrior," I said. "But I do know I can take care of our home and Judith, while the rest of you go out and fight. Make sure it's a place worth comin' home to."
Sometimes I thought it was a naïve feeling for me to have—wanting us all to be a happy family, when we all looked forward to a gruesome death. Regardless, my commitment had become more important to me since Daryl's and Andrea's respective rejoining with our family; it had become my mission. Andrea noticing it and telling me was a sign that maybe I was doing something right.
"You are a fighter, though," Andrea argued, catching my eye. "You're strong. You're just a different kind of fighter, and I hope you know how important you are."
I was buoyed by her compliments. The more she talked, the more anxious I became to talk to her about my butterflies over Daryl. "Thank you," I replied.
I wondered if Daryl noticed the same thing about me, too. I hoped he did. I'd caught him eyeing me lately, which was part of my confusion and wanting to talk to someone, because I didn't know how to interpret the looks he was giving me. Part of me felt like they were the same kind of looks Merle gave me, and part of me kept remembering Daryl's dismissals of me as a little girl.
"I once argued with Lori over this very issue," Andrea mused, pulling my attention back to our conversation. Her face took on a pained expression as she brushed her lips over Judith's downy head. "I was on the opposite side of the argument, saying that fighting and protecting the group was what mattered, and I… I didn't appreciate her enough." She lifted her watery eyes up to meet mine. "I won't make that same mistake again."
I blinked in surprise and a little of my own pain. The teenaged girl inside me yearned for my mama all over again. Lori had taken on that role and I had loved and admired her for everything she did for all of us.
It sounded like Andrea was implying that I could fill a similar role, although we all knew it was Carol who was the matriarch of our group these days. Even though I couldn't fathom being so strong, I hoped I could do the amazing women in my life some justice.
"We're all essential to this life," I said, even as I was just fully accepting my own role, and Andrea reached out and squeezed my hand, holding Judith in her arms.
Our bittersweet moment was cut short, once Daryl began his quick ascent, two steps at a time. Those butterflies flocked and swooped in my belly, when his eyes briefly met mine before quickly darting down and away.
"Hey, Daryl," I said, swallowing thickly, watching his gaze home in on Judith, ignoring Andrea and my emotional moment. "We're just finishin' up."
In one smooth motion, he pulled the strap of his crossbow over his head and toed his boots off and to the side, then brusquely reached out and took Judith from Andrea's arms. "She had a nap yet?" he asked, cradling Judith in the crook of one elbow as he shrugged out of his vest.
Judith grinned and gurgled and pushed her tiny fists up into his face, kicking her legs and squealing. He was her favorite, next to her daddy; Daryl was like a baby amusement park ride to her or something.
"No," I answered, watching him coddle Judith with a gentleness only he possessed, and that we'd all come to accept. He was a sight for sore eyes.
Our daily life moved so quickly and brutally that some days we didn't even have a minute to think, let alone give or seek comfort. Daryl's ability to switch from cold, hard hunter and killer, to tenderly cradling an infant within mere minutes was a testament to the kind of man he really was at his core.
Every move he made was seamless, effortless, and absolutely earnest. Daryl was Rick's right hand for a reason and we all knew it. His instincts were stellar and he was never wrong—at least not in my eyes.
"She won't sleep long, though," I warned, watching him hold Judith to his chest with the tips of his fingers as he crossed his ankles and dropped to his butt onto his thin sleeping pallet. "An hour tops. She'll need t'eat soon and-"
"'S fine." He waved Andrea and me off, shifting then laying back with Judith already closing her eyes against his chest. "She'll be my 'larm clock, then. Won't ya, sweetheart?" he cooed quietly into her face. "Don't need to sleep all day, do we? Jus' get a little shut eye's all."
I'd seen Daryl with Judith a million times before, but I stood and watched him settle back and close his eyes with a sigh. He looked so cozy and warm, and I suddenly felt a little sleepy myself. I didn't realize I was staring until I felt Andrea's hand on my arm. I looked up at her and she nodded her head toward the staircase, so I pulled myself from my gawking-at-Daryl reverie long enough to follow Andrea's lead.
When we reached the bottom of the steps and started to make our way to the main meeting area, Andrea turned to face me. "If you'd asked me a year ago 'would you leave a four-month-old infant to nap with Daryl Dixon?', my answer would have been 'hell no', but now…" Andrea paused and glanced up to where Daryl and Judith were both fast asleep, then shifted her speculative gaze back to me. "This world has definitely changed us all."
I suspected she meant that this world had changed her opinion because Daryl was Daryl, and the way he was with Judith and everyone else came from his heart and soul and gut.
I followed her gaze, feeling that pang in my belly at the sight of Daryl doing something as ordinary as taking a nap with a baby. I never knew when this flurry would overtake me, but it was happening more and more every time he was within my line of sight or earshot. I closed my eyes and shook my head as if that would dislodge whatever was causing these flutters, or somehow knock the pieces into place to make sense and tell me what to do about it.
"Well, I'm headed up to relieve Sasha from watch," Andrea sighed. "Then again, maybe she'd rather stay on for a double and watch with Rick, the way they've been acting." Andrea joked, and I let out a small huff of laughter in acknowledgment, still torn with one eye watching Daryl sleep. "Are you going to try and take advantage of this sudden free time?" she asked, gesturing to where my attention was mostly rooted.
I took a deep breath, then looked her in the eye to try and answer. It seemed like an opportune moment for me to talk to her about what was on my mind, but I was suddenly unable to find the words. Andrea's look at that moment told me that she knew I was distracted, and by what. Some would call it a knowing smile.
"What?" I asked, caught like a kid with my hand in the cookie jar, shuffling my feet in place and avoiding her gaze. I had wanted to talk to her, but there I was, avoiding the talk like a scared cub.
"I could ask you the same thing," she replied with a wry smile, reaching out to gently tug me by my wrist away from the hall that lead up to Daryl's space. "You seemed distracted by Daryl just now. Is there something you want to talk about?" Her face was soft, but less teasing—almost concerned.
I was suddenly reversing in my mind—could hear that proverbial dump truck beeping as it backed up. I told myself that maybe I was making all these feelings and what-ifs up, or it was hormones, or maybe I should just talk to Maggie or Carol. I was starting to feel like a dumb little girl with a crush, but hadn't Andrea just called me a woman?
"I dunno what to say," I said, keeping my voice quiet and leaning against the wall. Andrea mirrored my stance and nodded quietly, encouragingly. "I guess… well, I dunno's all." My breath shook a little and I hazarded a glance into her eyes.
She was calm, until her brow furrowed. "Did something happen between you two?" she asked, troubled eyes searching my face.
"No!" I said, pushing away from the wall and starting to walk away. I was embarrassed and upset that she would think anything bad about Daryl or me from my flaky behavior. Her tone of voice implied something untoward. I worried that I'd misjudged confiding in her entirely.
"Beth, honey, I'm sorry," Andrea said, taking my wrist gently in her hand again. "I was just feeling my way around—trying to get you to talk, but if you don't want to, that's fine. Really. Just know that I'm here if you need to."
I turned to face her. "He's a good man," I asserted, and Andrea relaxed, releasing my wrist and nodding, her face shifting back into a soft smile. "And, I guess—I get confused sometimes, thinking maybe he might look at me like…"
Like, what, I couldn't put into words.
Andrea's brow furrowed again, but this time in confusion as opposed to concern. "Like, a woman?" she guessed.
I nodded, looking down at my feet, feeling embarrassed all over again and getting ready to flee. After all the talk of me looking after Judith and being so important and a woman, I was still just a 17-year-old girl, I guessed. Daddy thought there was something up with Carl and me, for goodness's sake, but I had thought Andrea thought of me differently.
"Beth," Andrea said, moving to stand square in front of me again, taking my hands in hers. "Sweetie, you are a woman. Especially in this day and age."
Surprised, my eyes flicked up to meet hers again. I was once again emboldened by her words, and reassured that I hadn't made the wrong decision in talking to her after all. "So, you don't think I'm some silly little girl?" I asked, testing the waters.
"No," Andrea shook her head, smiling. "I do not think you're a silly little girl, but," she paused, looking thoughtful. "Daryl is a good man, so no matter how much you and I know you aren't a little girl? He'll be hesitant." She looked me in the eye and nodded her head, silently asking me if I got her meaning.
"Ya think so?" I asked.
She nodded again. "Yes. He'll kick into protector mode, like he seems to be doing more and more these days." Her smile was blinding.
I sighed, relieved over just talking about what I was feeling, even though she was basically telling me that I didn't have a chance in this Hell we were living in.
"I don't even know what it is that I'm feelin' other than appreciation and admiration," I said, glad to be getting it all off my chest. "But it's different than the way I look at anyone else—I know that much. I get these… butterflies, and I don't know what to do."
Andrea's face brightened further with that smile and she squeezed my hand reassuringly. Her eyes sparkled and she nodded, encouraging me to keep talking.
"I just want 'im to know," I said, looking her in the eye, feeling myself ramp up with confidence at her understanding. "He should know what a good man he is."
She took a deep breath then let it out, a thoughtful expression crossing her face. "Let me ask you this: how do you see that knowledge, potentially coming from you, affecting your feelings for him or your relationship to him?" she asked.
I thought for a second, then shrugged. "I don't really know that part," I answered honestly. "I was kinda hopin' ya'd help me with that." I laughed nervously, and she answered with her own soft laughter.
She tilted her head and studied my face. "Daryl's come a long way, and I think even he's starting to believe those good things about himself," she said. "But it doesn't hurt to hear it."
"Ya think I should just walk up to 'im and tell 'im I think he's the bee's knees or somethin'?" I half-joked.
Andrea smiled again. "I don't know about that particular phrase, but I don't see why you should sulk around here or hide your feelings. You should explore them," she said with a final nod, holding my hands in hers. "Life is too short."
I nodded. "Any more advice?" I asked.
"Be honest," she said. "And don't get ahead of yourself. While I personally don't see anything wrong with what you're feeling and acting on it, Daryl's quite a bit older than you. And, as I said, that may affect his reaction significantly. Just keep that in mind."
Andrea's warning would prove to be closer to the truth than anything I could have imagined.
Two days after my talk with Andrea, I still hadn't been able to talk to Daryl. Whether it was my nerves, which had been slightly calmed by Andrea's support, or his constant avoidance of me, I wasn't sure. I swore to God that man was like Keyser Söze sometimes—he was right within arm's reach and then poof, he was gone.
I was actually starting to get annoyed. I felt on edge constantly and it was affecting my mood. I was so edgy that Carol finally confronted me one Sunday afternoon.
"Bethie, I'm gonna be straight with you, your level of distraction is off the charts, even for a teenage girl," she said with a wry grin, making me roll my eyes at her reminder of my age and hormone levels. "Wanna tell me what's up, or do I need to start playin' 20 Questions?"
"Got 18 more questions," I snapped, pretending to play along with her game.
After her recent commentary on my age and remembering what she'd said to Daryl after the shower incident, I wasn't sure I wanted to tell her what was going on at all. She could likely negate everything that Andrea had said to me, and even though I hadn't acted on what Andrea and I had discussed, I wasn't ready to let those thoughts go. I wanted to think there was a possibility that a man like Daryl Dixon could consider me a woman.
Carol looked half-stunned and half-amused at my sarcasm for a second. "What's gotten into you?" she asked, her tone suddenly serious. "You haven't seemed yourself lately at all. Not for weeks."
I sighed heavily, and looked everywhere but at Carol, scanning the area surrounding us for anyone who might come up on us or overhear. We seemed to be relatively alone, save for Michonne, who was walking the fence. I knew Michonne—even though she knew everything that went on—didn't much care about our personal drama. She was almost a female Daryl in that respect.
Finally, I turned to face Carol and I looked her in the eye. "'Member when I told you I was mad at Daryl for leavin', and you said he had his reasons?" I asked.
Carol nodded, fully focusing her gaze on my face. I could tell she was reading my every move at that point. "I do," she said. "'Cept I 'member you sayin' pissed, which brings me back to you not bein' yourself, so this is a good place t'start."
I took a deep breath. "Well, I been feelin' things," I said. "A lot of things and I don't know what to do about 'em."
Carol blinked. "Okay," she said, twisting at her waist and propping one hip onto the surface of one of the picnic tables in the secured yard. "What kinda things?"
My belly flipped, and not in the fun Daryl's-playing-with-the-baby way. Carol looked even more concerned than Andrea had looked just a couple days before. I was so hesitant to tell her what feelings I was feeling that they all just tumbled out of my mouth.
"Can't stop starin' at Daryl," I said, shrugging one shoulder, avoiding her eyes and the temptation to list off all the things I'd been staring at. "Butterflies in my belly, 'specially when he's with Judith, wishin' he'd leave and stay all at once." My voice was a quiet rush, and I barely heard myself, as I eyed her sideways.
Carol sat stock still and studied me quietly, her head tilted and her brow lightly furrowed. She didn't say anything, though, and that made my jitters fly sky-high. My worries about her thinking I was too young or naïve or silly morphed into anger at her, then.
"I know whatchyer thinkin'," I said, and she straightened up and arched one brow.
"Ya do?" she asked, an amused half-smile curving her lips, annoying me further.
I nodded. "Ya think I'm too young," I said, turning to busy my hands with the laundry we were folding. "I heard ya say it to 'im."
"Oh? When was that, exactly?" Carol asked, standing away from the table again and watching me frantically fold and pile shirts and pants.
"After I took 'em all their clothes to the showers, right after Daryl and his brother got back," I said, and Carol sighed and all but rolled her eyes.
"You did!" I accused. "You told Daryl to watch his brother and that I was 17-years-old, but I'm gonna be 18 next week, Carol-"
"Bethie." She interrupted me with her words and a hand on my forearm. "Listen to me for a second, okay?" She ducked her head to look me in the eye for confirmation that I was listening.
I dropped the T-shirt I was tightly gripping to the tabletop, then finally nodded with an exasperated exhale of breath.
"Daryl Dixon and Merle Dixon are two very different men," she asserted, fiercely arching her brows over the fire in her eyes. "Let's get that straight right up front."
Her words sank deep into my thoughts as her hand closed more tightly around my wrist. I'd always taken it for granted that the Dixons were different from each other—assumed, I guessed—but Carol was making a real effort in that moment to make sure I understood just how different they really were. I looked her straight in the eye and nodded.
"When I said those things to Daryl, I was speakin' specifically about Merle," she said, her grip, loosening slightly from my wrist. "And I was speakin' specifically to Daryl; I had no idea you were listenin' in."
"I'm sorry," I apologized, and dropped my gaze to where our hands had lightly clasped together. "Ya'd told me to go find Daddy, but... I was just spun over the shower situation."
"I mean, 17 in this world is like 30 in the old one, but Merle Dixon needs to keep his distance, was my point," she said, cocking her head to the side, indicating that we should rest against the tabletop. I followed her lead, and she watched me closely as she continued. "More than just Merle tauntin' ya is what ya mean by the shower situation, I presume."
I nodded, then looked up at her. "I didn't know seein' a man without his clothes on would affect me that way," I confessed in an almost-whisper, and Carol's eyes grew wide for a split second, then crinkled around the edges from the huge smile that spread across her face.
She patted my hand with hers. "You are growin' up." She reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. "There's no way ya haven't started to learn about men and their desires." Then she paused, her eyes losing focus, before she looked out over the yard, dropping her free hand from my hair to where our hands were joined between where we sat on the table.
"You're on the cusp of girlhood and womanhood," she said, her voice sounding shaky for a second before she cleared her throat and swallowed, then looked back at me. "But I don't see anythin' wrong with what you're feelin'."
"Really?" I brightened, even as Carol's eyes were a bit misty. "I talked to Andrea, too, and she said the same thing."
"That doesn't surprise me," she said, smiling. "What else she say?"
"She told me to be honest and to not rush anything," I said. "And that Daryl's a good man and he'd probably refuse to accept it." I laughed a little and rolled my eyes.
Carol chuckled. "Isn't that the truth," she murmured with a slight nod, then turned her head to look me in the eye, squinting away the glare from the setting sun. "The bigger issue with Daryl's gonna be Daryl—not you or your age—if you get my meaning."
I nodded; Daryl wouldn't be as easy to convince that I wasn't a little girl as Andrea and Carol had been. I didn't even know how I felt about him, exactly, except that seeing him and hearing him and just thinking about him made my insides twirl and spin, and I was realizing that I was going to need his participation in that process if I was going to figure those feelings out. Getting him to cooperate was going to the biggest challenge of them all.
"He thinks I'm just a kid," I said sadly, looking down at our hands clasped beside my thigh, then I saw Carol tilt her head in my peripheral vision and I looked up.
"I dunno about that." She shot me a wry glance. "But I doubt he's had a lot of relationship experience, which is what makes him so hesitant in so many ways."
"Well, neither have I," I said with a shrug, disbelieving her words. Daryl was a good-looking man, even by pre-end-of-the-world standards. Sure, he was surly and sometimes abrupt, but he was strong and a superior tracker and hunter. I imagined he would've been a catch back where he was from.
"Exactly," she said, with an almost ominous tone.
We finished the laundry, then delivered all the right clothes to all the right places. That night in my bunk, I couldn't help but roll my brain over Carol's facial expression when she said that she doubted that Daryl thought of me as a child, and her tone when I agreed that I didn't have a lot of relationship experience. She seemed to know something I didn't and her comments about Daryl's own lack of experience added a whole new dimension to my anxiety.
Still, Andrea's and Carol's agreeing with me on the basic level made me feel like I was making some headway with the confused thoughts and feelings that had been warring in mind mind and my gut for the past several weeks. The only next step I could make was to talk to Daryl, and I knew just how to start that conversation.
Thank you, Leiah and Brodie for your pre-reading skillz, and MsKathy for the redness of your glorious pen.
