A/N: So this is my Secret Santa gift to Thequeenofshebasays on tumblr, even though Christmas was three days ago and this has absolutely nothing to do with winter/Christmas at all. Oh well, I hope you love it anyways (because I love this, it's my favorite piece I've ever done) :)
Sometimes, she got confused. Her mind would take her back to the awful weeks she spent at Grady Memorial Hospital, to the abuse she received for no reason every day. She had scars, both physical and mental. The two curved whitish-pink scars that adorned her cheek and forehead from Dawn's torment, and the one circular purple scar that sat on the top of her forehead, right on her hairline from when a bullet ripped its way through her skull. She had miraculously survived, crawling out of her own grave and stumbling quite literally into Morgan, delusional and half dead.
She had pulled through though, she was a fighter, that's what her father had always told her. She fought for her life and won, and when she finally made it to the Alexandria Safe Zone with Morgan, she was sure things couldn't get better.
But then they did.
She didn't even see him, that's how fast he moved, calling out her name in disbelief before pulling her into his arms, holding her to his chest in a steel-like grip. She tensed at the contact, but when she glanced down the person's back and saw the yellowed angel wings, she relaxed. She had sobbed into his hair while he cried silently into her neck, his tears hot against her skin as he whispered words she couldn't comprehend in her ear.
"I thought you were dead, y-you were dead." He stammered, pulling away and cupping her face in his hands, tracing his thumb over the scar on her cheek. She only laughed softly, resting her palm on his cheek.
"It's gonna take a lot more than a gunshot to kill me Daryl Dixon."
Later, after she reunites with the rest of her family and sheds more tears than she thought she had, she lays on the couch in the house her sister and Glenn share with Tara, Rosita and Abraham. Her mind is running wild, making it ache uncomfortably. She feels too big for her skin and she twitches restlessly. The room feels too small, too cramped. She's in the narrow hospital hallway again, just inches away from reuniting with her family. She's waking up wrapped in a white sheet with the earthy smell of dirt surrounding her and she's suffocating in her shallow grave, her head burning like the fires of Hell had been placed on it.
She can't catch her breath, the little living room is closing in on her and oh God, she can't breathe. Somehow she ends up stumbling through the safe zone, barefoot and disoriented, hot tears running down her face until she collapses, scraping her knees on the asphalt. That's how he found her a short time later, hyperventilating in the middle of the dark, deserted road, curled into a little ball. His heart cracks a little at the sight of her hurting, and when he scoops her up in his arms she screams, kicking her legs wildly and hitting him with her little fists until he sets her down again. Her eyes are wild and panicked, and when they finally settle on him she relaxes completely, her knees buckling in exhaustion as she falls into his arms. She had fallen asleep by the time he carries her back to Glenn and Maggie's, the latter on the verge of losing her mind worried about where her sister was. Daryl shushes her when he breezes past her, taking the blonde straight back to the couch and laying her down gently. He'd be damned if Maggie woke her up after what had just happened.
"Stay." She mumbles sleepily when he tries to leave, grabbing onto his hand and locking it in an iron grip. He stops in his tracks, turning and sitting on the floor next to the couch without so much as a second thought. He wakes up the next morning with his head resting on the couch cushion next to her stomach, a blanket thrown over his shoulders and a dull ache in his tailbone from sitting on the hard floor all night.
But it was worth it, oh was it worth it.
She moves in with him after being in the safe zone for three days. She had practically lived there already, because even though she fell asleep at her sister's house, Beth always ended up sneaking into his house in the middle of the night, sliding into bed next to him without so much as a word of explanation.
Maggie had thrown a fit, insisting that she would feel safer knowing that her sister was close in case anything went wrong. I can't lose you again! She had cried, clutching Beth's shirt tightly in her hands. The blonde only shook her head and continued to fold up the few items of clothing she had. Her sister might have felt safe with her close, but Maggie didn't know the only way she ever felt safe was wrapped up in Daryl Dixon's strong arms.
So she moves out, carries her things a street over, and lets herself into his house. Carl is sitting on the floor of the living room, watching Judith and playing cards with a girl his age he had met when they first arrived. He raises an eyebrow at the blonde as she kicks off her shoes at the door and sends him a beaming smile before padding through the house to Daryl's room- their room. To say he was surprised when he gets home from watch to find the blonde's things in his room and the girl herself lying in bed reading, would be an understatement. She smiled shyly at him, shrugging sheepishly and patting the empty space next to her.
"Well, alright then." Is all he says before toeing off his boots and joining her in bed.
It doesn't take long for their family to notice the blossoming romance between them. They see the way his hand rests on her lower back as he leads her out of a room and the way he is the only one who can calm her down when she starts to panic. The pair are attached at the hip, (quite literally the time Rick walks into their room without asking, seeing more of Daryl than he ever wished too, but that happens much, much later) it was impossible to see one without the other.
It's the moments that people don't see that are important though. Like the first time she kisses him is in the middle of the night when he's having a nightmare and all she does is roll over and press her lips to his, calming him down. Nobody is home when they're making out on the couch like teenagers (like they know Carl does whenever his new friend comes over to "play cards" when him and Rick are on watch) and Daryl runs his hands under Beth's shirt, his calloused hands seeming to be even rougher against her smooth skin. Nobody sees the way she goes stiff as a board at the intimate touch because the only other time a man has touched her that way she was pressed up against a desk, trapped as the officer's greedy fingers roamed over her torso.
She barely notices when Daryl asks her if she's okay, if he wants her to stop, but she shakes her head quickly, urging his hands to drift higher as she practically begs don't stop, please don't stop. He didn't know it then, but his touch had healed her a bit, filled in one of the cracks she had gotten after her abduction.
No one- yet everyone- is surprised when they both have rings on their fingers a year or so after she arrived at the safe zone. There was no official ceremony, they didn't need one. Quiet Till death do us part's whispered in the dark of night and simple, silver bands he had taken during a supply run were enough for them. The world had changed and they had changed with it, there was no need for a big wedding and Beth had long been stripped of the purity needed to wear a white dress. According to Beth, they had been married for a long time, that they just didn't call it that and they didn't need a stupid piece of paper declaring their marital status.
It's not all smooth sailing though. They lose people and Beth still has anxiety attacks and Carl cries for two days when his first girlfriend breaks up with him and walkers still threaten the little life they made every day. Beth and Daryl fight and get into screaming matches over Beth going on runs or having kids or Daryl's awful habit of leaving the toilet seat up. She gets frustrated at him and he accidentally calls her names, and his heart damn near cracks when her face drops and she leaves the house without another word. Then at the end of the day when she's at Maggie's, crying into her older sister's shirt about how awful she feels for yelling at him; he always shows up at the door with red rimmed eyes, a handful of wildflowers, and an apology on his lips.
He almost goes into shock when she tells him she's pregnant. She swears he goes whiter than a sheet of paper and she gets worried that he's going to get angry or pass out or something equally awful. Then, he cracks a smile so bright it rivals the sun, and he's picking her up and spinning her around in circles in their kitchen. Judith giggles when she enters the room just in time for him to press his lips to hers, cupping her face in one hand and resting the other on her still-flat stomach.
He's scared for it, and so is she, but just like everything else life throws their way, they know they can face it together.