CHAPTER TEN: MOVEMENT

"Hey."

The sound of Beth's voice echoing through the darkness of the room at barely above a whisper met his ears, and in that moment, Daryl cursed himself for being such a light sleeper. Daryl didn't bother to fight the sleep groan that slipped out of his lips as he rolled himself on the bed from his front so that he was lay flat on his back, throwing one of his arms over his eyes in one swift movement as though he was attempting to shield himself from the light.

That was the problem - there was no light. At all.

The bedroom was coated in complete and utter darkness except for the faint red glow of the alarm clock, and Daryl just knew that it had to be the middle of the night - at least two or three in the morning. Still, the time of day didn't seem to deter his wife from trying to wake him up, nudging him gently in the ribs with one of her fingers.

Thankfully, he wasn't due to be in work in the morning. It was one of those nice, relaxing weekends where neither of them had to work - he wasn't needed to do any overtime at the garage and Beth never worked weekends at the hospital anyway - so they could stay up as late as they wanted and sleep in as late as they wanted to, as well.

But tonight, it seemed as though Beth had other plans.

"Daryl?" she said, her words spoken at a louder tone this time. "Are you awake?"

It seemed as though the most natural thing in the world for Daryl to do at that moment in time was to grunt, so he did. He hadn't intended for his non-verbal response to be humorous (at all), but Beth giggled anyway, clearly finding something amusing. As much as Daryl didn't want to get up, his lips naturally twitched upwards into a smile at the sound of Beth's laughter and he pushed his arm further from his face so that he could make out the outline of his wife's frame.

"Am now," he told her in response to her previous question, and Beth let out a hum of approval before scooting her body closer towards his. In the darkness of the room, it was impossible to make out much of anything, so he settled for brushing his nose against Beth's and waited a few seconds for her to explain to him why she had woken him up in the middle of the night.

Beth was gone twenty weeks pregnant at this point and it her stomach was becoming much more swollen (although her stomach wasn't the only part of her body that was). His wife was constantly complaining about back pain and as much as Daryl tried to help her, he knew that there wasn't much at all that he could do for her, so most of the time he tried not to say too much about it. The pregnancy books that he had read told him that Beth's hormones would be bothering her and so she could have some quite extensive mood swings, but so far, Daryl's wife hadn't thrown him anything that he couldn't handle.

Still, the younger woman was becoming more frustrated about her sleeping pattern. Because of her growing stomach, Beth was learning that she could only really sleep on her back or on her side as opposed to on her front, which (apparently) was her favourite position to lay down in. The nights seemed to be long and restless for her, and as much as Daryl tried to be supportive, he was at a loss of what to do for her.

Waking him up in the middle of the night, however, was not something that Beth did - ever. Even when she had been ill in the past, Beth had still always made an effort to make sure that she didn't disturb her husband.

It looked like that side of her had gone out of the window.

"Give me your hand," Beth whispered to him, and Daryl could practically hear the goofy grin on her face as she spoke.

The corner of his mouth twitched upwards ever so slightly and even in the darkness, he narrowed his eyes at Beth somewhat suspiciously. She didn't try and yank his hand from him; instead, she waited patiently whilst he reached out towards her and intertwined his fingers with her almost cautiously, not sure of exactly what Beth wanted him to do.

For a brief few moments, Beth held his hand in hers - even gave it a squeeze - but then she was switching the position so that the palm of her hand was resting gently on top of his and she was guiding his hand towards her body.

When she placed his palm flat against her stomach, Daryl had to admit to himself that it definitely hadn't been what he had been expecting when she started guiding him towards her. That was the thing about her hormones driving her body crazy - Beth was horny, too. A lot more so than usual. To the point where he was struggling to keep up with her antics. Apparently, though, she didn't want sex from him now. And for a short few seconds, Daryl wasn't really sure what it was that his wife wanted from him.

That was, however, until he felt it.

Small and gentle and barely even there if you didn't concentrate on it properly enough. Soft and delicate, a sort of prodding at his hand that he knew had to be a kick, but couldn't be sure until Beth confirmed it.

"Is tha' -"

"Yes."

And Daryl was shocked; genuinely taken aback by the whole situation because this had most definitely not been what he was expecting when Beth woke him up, and now that it was actually happening, he found that all of his desire to drift off back to sleep had vanished. Daryl was completely awake, eyes wide and mouth hanging open and completely unsure of what to do.

His hand was practically glued to Beth's stomach, and when he finally felt as though he could move an inch of his body, Daryl raised his other hand to her stomach and pressed it against her skin there, too. Daryl had seen pregnant women before - hell, Merle had slept with more than one of them - but that didn't mean that he ever fully understood everything that went on with babies and pregnancies. He'd never personally dealt with a pregnant women - especially not as intimately as he was being with Beth - and this experience of feeling his child moving inside of his wife was better than any of the damn pregnancy books had said that it would be.

Daryl was uncertain of just how long it was that he stayed there like that, but Beth eventually let out a little giggle and pushed her lips to his in a chaste but loving kiss. He was still completely stunned; shocked and unsure and feeling as though he was slightly in awe of the whole situation.

And had he not been excited about his wife's pregnancy before - although he really, really had been - he most certainly was now.

Sorry for the pretty slow updates! I've been working on my other Bethyl fic A Stranger, A Suitor and I've started another Bethyl story called Once Upon a Dream, too. I'll be trying to update this fic and Untouchable more regularly, I promise.

Thanks for reading and please review!