For Marisa.

Something short and silly, but I saw something on Pinterest about giving yourself Veronica Lake hair and of course, it made me think of Beth and this particular universe. Thank you! (And if you want to read something for a particular universe, let me know!)

…

When Beth decided she would curl her hair for tomorrow, she washed it and let it dry a bit so it wasn't completely sopping wet. It then took her almost forty minutes to twist all of her hair up with bobby pins. It was a lot of work and she never slept good; bobby pins stabbing her scalp all night.

But she did it because she certainly wasn't the first woman to do painful things in the name of "beautifying" themselves. And despite the pain in the butt of twisting and pinning all of her hair up and then the actual pain of her scalp being stabbed, Beth actually did really like the way her hair looked the next morning.

In the morning, their rooster woke them up as he always did and Daryl was the first to stir. He knew Beth had had a restless night – why she insisted on making herself like a porcupine, he didn't know, but he knew enough to not ask – and he leaned over, giving her a kiss on the cheek.

"I'll go get the coffee started," he told her.

"Thank you," Beth murmured, still more asleep than awake.

Daryl kissed her cheek again and then pulled himself from the bed, grabbing a pair of pants and tugging them over his boxers, but leaving himself in just his white undershirt for now. He looked back to Beth as he left their bedroom and her eyes were blinking open and she then winced when she moved her head a fraction of an inch on her pillow.

No, he sure as hell didn't know why she did that to herself. His wife's hair was already the prettiest head of hair he had ever seen. She didn't need to go, making it into something it wasn't. In the humid Georgia summers, Beth's hair would get those waves she seemed to like so much and she didn't have to kill her head or be dragging her ass the next from lack of sleep to get them.

Again though, Daryl kept all of these thoughts and opinions to himself as he went into the bathroom.

Daryl opened the door to find Henry, their second oldest, standing there, still half asleep.

"Can I have some coffee?" He asked.

Christ, Daryl thought to himself. One morning, their oldest, Shawn, and Henry had been up long before Beth or the youngest two, Patrick and Hannah, and in a moment of very bad parenting – Daryl was figuring that out – he had let both boys try little cups of coffee.

Shawn had hated it with his first taste and pushed the cup away to get himself some chocolate milk instead. Henry, though, Christ, Henry.

"You get down to the kitchen quick and I'll give you a sip. And you know the rules. You ain't tellin' your mom," Daryl answered though even as he spoke, he knew his answer should have been something different.

Henry nodded, yawned and smiled all at the same time and slipping past Daryl for the bathroom, Daryl headed down the hall, looking into his and Beth's bedroom again. She was now out of bed and sitting at her vanity, she was pulling the pins from her hair as curls sprung down. He could see the bags under her eyes from the doorway. He may have been stupid enough to give his kid coffee, but he wasn't stupid enough to tell his wife that she looked tired.

Downstairs, in the kitchen, his brother, Merle, and his mother-in-law, Annette were both already awake, the coffee percolator on the stove and Annette was breaking eggs into a bowl at the counter.

"Good morning," Annette smiled at him.

"Good mornin'," Daryl smiled in return. He looked to the eggs and then to his brother before looking back to Annette with a frown. "You better not be makin' 'im breakfast. He can cook his own food."

"Of course I'm making Merle breakfast. I'm making you breakfast, too, now hush your mouth."

From where he sat at the table, already drinking a cup of coffee, Merle let out a snort.

Daryl poured his own cup of coffee and went to sit down across from his brother. "You didn' already feed the pigs and horses, did you?" Merle nodded, which made Daryl frown. "What the hell time did you wake up? The rooster just crowed."

Merle shrugged and sipped his coffee.

Hearing running feet on the steps, following by another pair of running feet, Henry, followed by Hannah, burst into the kitchen.

"Good morning!" Hannah, their morning-person in the family, greeted them all with a bright smile. "Daddy, Patrick wet his bed," she then informed him.

"Alrigh'." Daryl took one more sip of coffee, getting to his feet. He looked back to Annette, but her back was turned, now standing at the stove, and Daryl handed Henry his coffee cup, the boy taking it with a grin.

Just as he headed towards the stairs, he stopped when Beth came down next. She was already dressed in a simple blue cotton dress and her hair…

"Mommy, you look beautiful!" Hannah exclaimed at the sight of her.

"Oh, Beth," Annette smiled when she turned at the stove to look at her daughter upon hearing her granddaughter's words.

Beth blushed and her hand went to her hair. "I couldn't help myself," she explained with a smile.

Daryl loved Veronica Lake. Always had and he admitted that he carried a picture of the actress around in France during the war. He always thought this his wife looked so much like her – which Beth liked to tease him for. "I know that's the only reason you married me."

But this morning, Beth really looked like her. She had brushed her curls out so they were more of the soft waves of Veronica Lake's hair and Beth had also parted her hair far on the side of her head like Veronica, too.

Daryl tried to think of something to say, but to be honest, he couldn't stop looking at her and the more he looked, the darker Beth's blush became.

"I know it's silly," Beth began to speak when he didn't. "I know there's no reason to spend this much time, making my hair look all nice when I'm going to be in the kitchen all day and washing bed sheets-"

Her words were cut off suddenly when Daryl leaned in and kissed her.

"You look better than Veronica Lake," Daryl told her quietly.

And Daryl may not have always known just the thing to say or just the thing to do, but right now, his wife smiled and she looked at him through her eyelashes and he knew that this was the best possible thing to say. He kissed her again and Beth smiled against his lips.

"I'm gonna go wash Patrick off and I'll bring the bed sheets down," Daryl said and Beth nodded, still smiling with that pretty blush of hers.

But then she looked past him and saw Henry. Her smile disappeared. "Henry, are you drinking coffee?" Daryl didn't wait to hear the boy's answer. He turned and bolted up the stairs. "Daryl!" Beth yelled after him.

…