It was all a blur. Beth did not even look up when her father returned with everyone who she had previously banished. Maggie still sat behind her cradling the young woman in her arms like she knew her sister needed her to literally hold her up! When Rick quietly asked her if she was ready, Beth simply whispered "Yes."
"We are gathered here in the holy matrimony…" she heard her father start but her ears did not make out rest of the words.
Beth could not believe that this was happening right here in the infirmary. A blotched up wedding as the result of one mistake. Now Daryl was going to be bound to her forever, a wife that he did not love. She had made her bed so now she had to lie in it! This whole thing seemed more like a funeral than a wedding.
"Do you Daryl Dixon promise to honor, protect, and care for Beth as long as you both shall live in sickness and in health remaining faithful until the good lord calls you home?" Hershel continued.
"I swear!" she heard him declare in a very soft voice. Part of her could not believe that he actually said it. She heard sobs ringing out from Carol and the bride wondered if it was joy or grief causing them.
"And do you Beth Greene take Daryl to be your husband. Will you love, honor, and cherish him in sickness and health, forsaking all others, as long as you both shall live?"
Beth looked up for the first time since the entire thing had started.
Her eyes traveled around the room taking in the elated faces peering back at her waiting for an answer before finally resting them on the man before her. Still covered in dirt, grim, and blood, he did look like a mountain man but he was hers. His long wild hair was pushed back out of his face and his muscular bare arms were marked up with cuts. The crossbow hanged on his back over the angel wings he always wore that covered so many scars.
She knew this person was someone who knew her better than she knew herself sometimes. The father of her child! As far as protecting them was concerned, her and the baby resting innocently in her belly had won the apocalyptic lottery.
He caught her teary eyes and she felt that familiar electricity that she always experienced every time. His lips slowly turned up into a half smile as if telling her it would be okay. Just like everyone else in that room, he wanted her to say yes.
Suddenly, it was like that night in his cell almost three months ago. Beth could not tell Daryl no. Perhaps she would never be able to. In that moment, it felt right even if what they were doing might actually be wrong. Maybe, he would grow to love her. Maybe she loved him enough for the both of them.
"I do!" she whispered still looking his straight into his dark blue eyes. She seen the relief wash over them as she did.
Beth felt Maggie's tears falling onto her back behind her.
"Then I declare these two husband and wife!" her father's voice seemed to boom. "What God has joined together let no man tear apart!"
Daryl started toward her but Hershel put out his arm stopping him. "She needs to rest now before you kiss the bride!" he chuckled.
Amazing the effect a wedding could have on a man who was almost insane just a few minutes before Beth couldn't help but think.
"Then I will stay with her! Apparently, we have a lot to talk about!" her new husband insisted but the old man just shook his head no.
"Daryl, she almost lost Judith, was almost killed herself, confessed secrets I suspect she never wanted to reveal, watched her old man lose it, and then quite unexpectantly ended up married to you! I think Beth deserves a little alone time for a while!" her Daddy explained wisely. "After all there is only so much a person can take before the shock takes hold of them!"
Beth was thankful for the intervention! She had a lot to process before taking on a marriage with someone who probably never imagined or wanted to be married.
"You can come back for her after dinner!" Hershel stated.
"I'm not leaving her!" Daryl exclaimed.
"And you won't! She's right here!" Rick finally piped up pulling her husband back by the shoulder and started leading him out the door with Hershel following. "But you are now in the market for a bigger cell! Let's go figure out where you are going to put all your new wife's stuff! Don't forget she also has some of Judith's things and now there will be a new baby…."
Their voices faded as they got further away.
One by one everyone else started congratulating her before making an exit.
"Now you listen to me Beth," Tyreese told the flabbergasted bride. "If that man so much as raises a hand at you, you better let me know!"
"TY!" Carol interjected sternly. "Daryl would NEVER hit her!"
"Just saying!" the gentle giant continued with a wink. "Anyway, Congratulations!"
He put his arm around Sasha, who also offered her own well wishes, and made his way out of the infirmary.
Beth almost choked on her own saliva as Carol leaned down and whispered in her ear once Ty and his sister were gone. "Now you listen to me girl! If that man tries to get all rough with you again when you are doing your duty, I want you to reach down there and grab him up by the nuts! You hear!"
Beth turned every shade of red there was as she quickly looked around the room to make sure no one overheard. Besides Maggie who was cracking up behind her, she did not think anyone had!
"Do you hear me?" the older woman asked her sternly not taking no for an answer! Beth nodded. She had heard Carol a little too loud and clear!
"Good girl!" she said happily as she grabbed the sides of Beth's face with both of her hands and kissed her on the forehead before exiting the room.
"So you are like married to Daryl now, huh?" Carl said walking up eyeing her strangely. "And you are going to have baby!"
"Yep! I guess I am" she replied back at him smiling. "But don't think for a minute that I won't still be bossing you around!"
Carl smiled back but then his face fell. After a minute he said in all seriousness "Don't worry Beth! I think you are going to be a perfect mom. What happened to mine will not happen to you…..with things how they are now and all!"
It touched her that Carl was worried. Of course he would be!
"Yes Carl!" she said reassuringly. "I will be fine! We will just have someone else crawling around Cell Block C!"
"But it's still weird that you are married to Daryl though!" the young kid stated making a face.
"I know, right!" she agreed with a laugh. This kid did not even begin to know just how weird it was!
As soon as the coast was clear and everyone had left, Glen started cracking up hysterically.
"Daryl and Beth….married…wow….just WOW!" Glen mused between laughter as he took Maggie's hand and helped her stand up.
Her sister playfully smacked him in the arm but he had obviously been holding it in way too long!
"I mean how in the world did that happened!" he said catching his breath. "Never mind, I do not want to know! I already heard enough!" He started roaring again!
"Glen!" Beth warned but to no avail!
"I mean bruises!" he laughed! "The dumbass bruised you up! No wonder he ran off to the woods for a damn week! What an idiot!"
Maggie slapped him again but this time it wasn't playful! "Glen stop it!" she hissed. "Now is not the time!"
"I am sorry Maggie! This whole thing was just too fucken perfect!" he told his wife still roaring in laughter. "Did you see your damn Dad? I thought for sure Daryl was a goner!"
Even Beth could see the ridiculousness of the situation herself! Never in a million years would she have thought her Daddy would ever try to shoot Daryl!
"Shotgun wedding if I ever saw one!" he continued. "And here I thought he hated me so much! At least I can say that Hershel Greene never tried to kill me!"
Maggie could not help but laugh too, though she at least looked at Beth apologetically.
"Come on Glen! Daddy says she has to rest! She has had a big day!" Maggie said trying to push him out the door.
"Yeah, by the sound of it, you're going need all the rest you can get Beth!" Glen called back over his shoulder before her sister finally yanked him out of the room!
Beth looked up as Daryl stood at the door of the infirmary. She didn't say a word. He curiously studied his young wife before turning his attention to the floor. Silence. Finally, her husband looked back at her and simply said "Come on!" Beth nodded and followed him.
Evidently, the guys had decided that Beth and Daryl needed the holding cell just off the main block down a short hall. It was a lot larger than her old one. Her curtain hung on the entrance and once Beth entered it she was surprised to find a very big bed made from three halved bottom bunks and a regular Queen sized mattress. Her Lady Bug comforter set decorated it.
"Gift from Glen and Maggie." Daryl said dryly pushing past her and sitting his crossbow on a table in the corner that had come from his old cell. He pulled his knife from its sheath, placing it beside the weapon before taking a seat in his cracked brown leather chair beside it.
Beth did not know where else to sit so she took the bed. Glancing around the cell, she noticed that there was nothing else of Daryl's except for the table and chair. Her shelving unit rested on the opposite wall and her dresser was in the middle of the wider one. Her beautiful pictures brightened the walls. She could not imagine Daryl Dixon living here at all.
Beth noticed that the corner opposite of the one already claimed by her husband was bare. She had a pretty good ideal why.
"That is where we will put the baby shit I guess!" he said reading her thoughts.
Beth just nodded as she turned back toward him. He was clean now in a blue and white sleeveless flannel and the pants that she had spent forever mending that very day. His Angel vest hung over the back of the chair.
She had been thankful herself when Maggie had brought her a change of clothes with dinner. Her sore muscles has ached when the cold water from the shower cascaded over her body. The scent of the strawberry shampoo still lingered in her hair. It was nice to be finally clean.
Daryl just stared back at Beth intently. She realized that neither was really sure what they were supposed to do now.
Then suddenly his demeanor changed.
"So why didn't you tell me that I knocked you up?" he spewed out of nowhere, startling Beth. "Or were you ever going to tell me?"
"After a while it would have been quite obvious to everyone Daryl!" she shot back. How dare he? She was trying to protect him!
"You weren't going to tell anyone who the father was though, were you?" the redneck shouted jumping to his feet and pointing at her accusingly.
Beth jumped up right along with him. Husband or not, she wasn't going to just let this asshole yell at her.
"Well if you would have kept your mouth shut we wouldn't be in this mess now would we?" she yelled back throwing up her hands. "Rick would have calmed Daddy down eventually but NO! You had to play Daryl fucken Dixon once again and ride in on that white horse and save everybody!"
"Just so I got this straight in my head!" he spewed back. "You were just going to pretend to some kid that he didn't have a Daddy and try to take care of it yourself! Hell Beth, you are already raising Judith! What if stuff went to shit again? You were going to risk your child's life like that when you knew damn well he had a father! That was stupid even if he did belong to some no-good redneck!"
"What? That had nothing to do with it! God Daryl sometimes you are so dense!" she yelled at the idiot. She paused at the thought of the danger she almost put her child in. "It wasn't until right before that sham of a wedding did I even think about what would happen if there was no longer a prison and that's why I changed my mind!"
"So that is how your Daddy talked you into getting hitched, huh?" Daryl howled back staring at her with eyes like daggers.
"God….yes…no….I don't know!" she said tears coming to her eyes but still not backing down. "Damit Daryl, I was just trying to figure out a way to save your ass!"
"Me? And how in the fuck did you figure that?" he asked still very angry but obviously confused.
"Because I knew this would happen if they found out…my Daddy would see red…everyone would be expecting stuff….you would try to play hero!" Once again Beth felt the floodgates opening. She took a deep breath before she continued. "I was trying not to trap you! You know? Keep you from being stuck with some dumb girl you didn't really want! But then your dumbass went and trapped yourself!"
"What the hell Beth? Is that what you fucken think? That I don't want you? That you were trapping…..me?" he gruffly asked her almost like he was in disbelief.
"That's what I know!" she shot back defiantly standing inches from his face.
Daryl seemed speechless! He stood there staring at her curiously while catching his breath. Beth continued to stay eye to eye with him.
"Beth you never fucking seem to stop amazing me! I am the one that practically forced you to marry me, remember?" he finally said softly.
"And don't you think that I know why?" she said firmly.
"Obviously not!" he chuckled but not very friendly almost evil. "Apparently you have me confused as some crazy ass man of honor! You wouldn't be expecting in the first place if that were true!"
Frustrated she went to turn away and walk back to the bed but he caught her arm and turned her around once again gazing deep into her eyes.
"You should have fucken told me. If you or your Daddy would have said no today, I'm not sure what I would have done. Plan B would have been taking you away with me anyway tonight. Once everyone else was asleep, I would have snatched you up! Then what the hell would we have done? I told you once, Beth, I am no saint!" Daryl said to her in the most dangerous voice she ever heard him speak – and she had heard him be pretty scary in the past when dealing with threats!
Beth looked at him in shock!
"You were going to kidnap me? And where the hell would you have taken me Daryl?" she asked in horror.
"Don't know!" he shrugged. "Hadn't thought that far!"
"Seems like I am not the only one then with crazy ideals, huh?" she said freeing herself from his grip but Daryl quickly caught her limb again before she could back away.
Pulling her close he whispered in her ear "Doesn't matter because now you're stuck with me. I was counting on the fact that Hershel Greene is such a religious man. Believe me Beth, I'm the one who trapped you!"
Beth was taken aback! She pulled away and looked incredibly into his eyes searching for answers. All she found was a stoic face.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because I wanted to and no child of mine is going to be in this fucken up world without a father!" Daryl answered eyes wild like a beast.
Beth's heart sank. She had been right in that he only married her because she was pregnant. In fact, he was apparently willing to risk anything to make sure she became his wife because of it. But at least he didn't hate her for being pregnant. If the hunter hated her for anything it was for not telling him. A single salty tear rolled down her cheek.
"Damit! Let go of me!" Beth asserted and Daryl immediately dropped her arm.
He went to touch her face but his bride just turned and walked away. When she finally reached the bed, she laid down in the fetal position facing the curtain clad door and pulled the lady bug comforter up to her ear. More silent tears sprang from her eyes. She heard Daryl sigh, settle back into the chair, and begin to clean his weapons.
Beth could not even figure out why she was bawling. She thought she had already come to terms with the fact that he was not in love with her or anything. That is not what this was supposed to be about. She would marry him and he would protect her and the baby so what the heck was wrong with her? It must have simply been the hormones or something she figured.
Even though she hadn't known what to expect, this was not how she ever pictured her wedding night the young bride mused to herself as she began to drift off. Not that she had ever pictured a shot gun wedding either, so maybe this was how those things went. When Beth Greene had woke up this morning it had only been an ordinary day but somehow she was going to sleep now married to Daryl Dixon.
Lord help her!
Author's note: I want to thank everyone for the response that I have gotten so far for this story! I actually wrote it a while ago and the girls from the Rainbow Room encouraged me to publish it. I was not expecting anyone but them to find it on here and am completely overwhelmed by the amount of views and favorites this is getting! I did not think anyone else would be interested in reading it!
This is actually my first fanfiction story, though I have been a writer for quite some time! It is complete but none of it was edited so I am quickly doing that before I post each chapter. I know that there are still some mistakes and plan to go back thru and clean it up after I get all of it on here. I should be done posted before the Season 5 premier this Sunday.
Don't think that just because Bethyl is now married, that this is over yet! As you can see, there is more than one issue these two need to work through first! Also, more smut will be coming! Just be patient!
Again, thank you so much for all the support! ~ Walkingmin