"Are you ever gonna get your head out of your ass and come home?"
The unexpected voice startles Daryl enough that he actually overbalances and nearly falls in the damn river. Once he's caught himself, he glares up at Beth where she's standing on the bluff across the water. It doesn't phase her a bit, just like it never has since those fucking cops kidnapped her all those years ago. She just stands there, hands on her hips, and levels a ball-shriveling look on him that he thinks would have made even Merle quail.
"Ain't needed back there. Told Carol that." He moves away from the water, toward the trail that will take him away from his unwanted visitor.
"Carol's always had a soft spot for you. Woman spoils you."
Beth's moving as she speaks, picking her way down the opposite shore toward a rocky place that runs shallow enough to walk across this time of the year. It hasn't rained in a week, so he's got a few minutes at most before she's on this side of the river. Eyeing his escape route, he sighs. Girl knows where he lives, so she'll just follow him, just like Carol does.
He taught them both to track too well. Even when he moves the damned tent, they track him down, like persistent little hounds. So he gives in to the inevitable and waits for her to reach him.
Waiting for her gains him a pleased smile when she reaches him, even as she slips an arm in his like he's some sort of gentleman escort. He can't bring himself to push her away now any more than he ever could, so there her warm little hand stays against the inside of his elbow all the way to his tent.
Dog comes from wherever he'd fucked off to when they reach the tent, bounding happily when he sees Beth and nearly bowling them both over.
"Don't knock her down with that stupid jumping shit," Daryl orders, but just like Beth, Dog ignores him. Beth's kneeling and petting the big dog, who is so overjoyed by the attention that he's rolled onto his back for a damn belly rub. He allows himself a brief moment of being jealous of his own dog before going to toss his pack near the entrance to the tent.
Building up the fire from the coals, Daryl hangs his battered old kettle over the hook to boil water. Beth always stays just long enough to drink a cup of herbal tea with him, so the sooner he gets the ritual underway, the sooner she goes back where it's safe and he gets his solitude back.
Another reason for Dog's love of Beth comes next. She digs around in the pocket of the bulky trenchcoat she's wearing and drags out a little drawstring gunny sack, opening it long enough to retrieve a dog biscuit and pass it to Dog before tossing the sack to Daryl. He catches it out of habit. They won't last long, these little homemade treats she makes for the Belgian Malinois, even the way Daryl rations them, but she always brings a small supply.
Beth takes a seat on a log near the fire, tucking the length of her coat around her legs as if she's cold and resting her chin on her knees. Maybe she is, considering it's February in Virginia, but it's her choice to leave the relative comfort of Alexandria to trek through the woods. It's hard not to see her as the teenager he escaped the prison with when she's curled in on herself like this, though, despite her being twenty-five now.
Or is it twenty-six? He's honestly not sure.
"Something wrong back home? Michonne and the kids okay?" There's the familiar twinge of guilt and grief, thinking of Rick's kids, and the fact that he never found a single trace of his brother anywhere in these woods. After six years, he knows he won't, but seeing the kids just reminds him of how much he's failed.
Sighing, Beth raises her head to look at him. "Yeah, they're fine. Mostly."
"Mostly is too fucking vague. Something happen I need to know about?"
That just makes Beth roll her eyes. "Michonne's as busy as fucking ever, because the more she works, the more she doesn't have to admit she's a single mama and it's never changing." There's a bitter note in Beth's voice that makes him shiver. "And RJ's the nicest kid on the damn planet. Just like his daddy on the days the world didn't drive Rick batshit crazy."
The way she stops without mentioning Judith makes him go on alert. Not getting attached to RJ the way he did Judy and Carl was deliberate, if he's honest with himself, because he knows that more than anyone else, losing Judy would just flat out killing him. "What's wrong with Judith?"
Why won't she just get to the fucking point? He growls in frustration.
"I caught her sitting on the steps near Negan's cell, having herself a little chit-chat with him. Swore it was getting homework help, but that makes about as much sense as me asking him for gardening advice."
"You think he's up to something?" Daryl paces in agitation, ignoring the steaming kettle.
Beth reaches for it, going to get mugs and busying herself pouring them both a cup with herbs she takes from a pouch out of her coat pocket. He smells mint almost immediately, which he knows she hates, so he frowns. She still hasn't answered him, which isn't helping his mood.
"Is that why you want me to come back to Alexandria? To keep an eye on Negan?"
"It'd sure as hell be nice to have someone else there that remembers he's a goddamn monster!"
It's been so long since Daryl's heard Beth raise her voice that his breath catches. She's furious, face flushed and breathing labored, reminding him of when she yelled at him back in that moonshine shack. The mugs of tea are ignored as she clenches and unclenches her fists, as if she desperately needs to punch something but can't find a target.
He keeps his voice low and soothing like he used to with Merle on a bender. "Michonne ain't listening?"
"No one is. Not Michonne, not Aaron, not Gabriel. No one!"
Part of him wonders why Beth didn't go to Carol, who has a soft spot for Beth that manifests in only being able to love her from afar. Carol lost too many little blonde girls along the way, and she's too much like Daryl in that respect, avoiding the loss that would be the final straw by maintaining a distance. Carol would have helped her protect Judy, though, and as Ezekiel's wife, Carol has much more influence on their communities than Daryl could muster.
"Carol won't interfere at Alexandria. Not where Negan's concerned. Not after Carl's letter." Rubbing her chest as if she's in pain, Beth goes back to the mugs and grabs one, blowing across the rim to try to cool the hot liquid.
Beth staying at Alexandria with her sister taking over Hilltop had been odd enough, but when Maggie fucked off to parts unknown with little Hershel, Beth stayed. The penny drops for Daryl, and he realizes for the first time that as much as he's avoided Judith, Beth has stuck to the little girl like glue. Even with Michonne taking over the mama role for Judy, not once has Beth wavered in the duty she was given as a seventeen-year-old girl to help keep a motherless baby alive in a world designed to crush even adults. RJ being born just gave her another kid to be devoted to.
And now she's talking about Carl's letter, which is the sole reason Negan is still alive.
"Jesus fucking Christ, Beth. You want to kill Negan?"
She flinches hard enough that Daryl knows he's hit the nail on the head.
"It's not that I want to bring you back to do the dirty work," she mutters, trying to sip at the tea and grimacing when it's still too hot. Setting the mug down, she fumbles in her pocket again, making him wonder if she's got an entire store's worth of supplies stuffed in her pockets, fishing out some sort of homemade candy and popping it in her mouth.
"Then what do you need me for?"
"If I do it, ain't no way they won't know it was me, Daryl. And by their own rules, I'll be put in that same cell he's been living in, or else I gotta go on the run. Either way, someone's gotta be in Alexandria for Judy, and you're the only person other than me and Michonne and Carol that loves her like family. And maybe RJ doesn't really know you the same way, but you're his uncle just the same as Judy."
How the hell have things gone so far downhill that Beth's coldbloodedly considering killing a man to the point she's laying down plans for when she can't take care of the kids for Michonne anymore?
"Gotta be a way other than killing him."
It's been years in that cell, everyone following Carl's wishes, even Maggie, who'd wanted him dead as much as Daryl did. Beth had been strangely quiet then, worried eyes on them both until they came to terms with it. He wonders now if she considered this plan even back then when she could have pulled it off without direct suspicion.
Beth shrugs, fumbling with her coat buttons enough to get it unfastened, tugging her scarf off with a grumpy expression and looking overheated despite the chill winter air. The movement reveals a surprise he should have considered was going to happen one day. How far along, he doesn't have a clue, but there's no mistaking that Beth's pregnant. It's knowledge that hurts, like a kick to the balls, but he knew this would come one day.
For a long time, she was too young, even with the forced maturity of life in the apocalypse. By the time she was old enough for him to forget how big the age gap was between them, he was living in the woods. As long as he wasn't willing to live in Alexandria, where memories of Carl and Rick linger like ghosts, and Beth wasn't willing to leave, it was hopeless.
Now it's even more so, and he wonders in a stab of jealousy, just who she finally decided was worthy of her.
And why the hell isn't Beth leaning on the father of her child in this issue? He considers demanding an answer to that, but it'll mean he gets an answer to who it is, and he doesn't want to know. Can't know who she turned to when she got tired of waiting.
"Beth… you ain't ending Negan. A cell ain't no place for a baby, and you'll go on the run over my dead body."
Referencing the baby draws Beth's attention to the bump, her hand resting on it in that idle way he's noticed every pregnant woman does. "Maggie would take me in."
Maybe her sister would, but Maggie seems to move around often, changing communities as if she's running from the past like Daryl is. It's not a life Beth is suited to.
Huffing, Daryl goes to the tent and starts packing his shit up. Some can be left behind, but he's not sure how long the ancient scrap of canvas will survive once he's gone. This won't be a quick trip, because even if he walks into that basement and puts a bolt through Negan's eye like he should have done years ago, he won't be coming back here again.
By the time he's done, she's sitting on that log again, one mug empty beside her and working on the second cup, with Dog's head resting on her knees, watching her every movement. The mint makes sense now because Daryl remembers scavenging the old storebought boxes of peppermint tea for Lori at Carol's urging, back when Judith was the central point for every single one of them to protect.
Beth takes the lightest of his packs, slinging it across her thin shoulders as he dries the mugs and stuffs them in the top of the other pack. He gathers up his crossbow and puts the fire out before setting off in the direction that will lead them back to Alexandria.
He glances at her still unbuttoned coat and the change in her once slender waistline. "When's the baby due?"
Somehow he keeps his voice neutral on the question, because she beams at him. "June. Guess you'll be an uncle again, yeah?"
Nodding, he turns his attention to the trail, listening to Beth tell Dog about how much babies love dogs, and that he'll love the woods around Alexandria for long runs the same as all the way out here. She's so damn affectionate to the dog that it reminds Daryl just how much he's given up these past years, with nothing to show for it.
Daryl lost sight of his real priorities, grieving and lost without Rick, just one loss too many for his heart to endure, but he can't do that anymore. He can't break his promise to Rick not to kill Negan, not without better cause than the bastard talking to Judy through a barred window. But he sure as hell can take up being the Negan's warden if no one else is watching him except Beth.
If Rick dropped back into their lives tomorrow, the man would never forgive Daryl if he hadn't kept their family safe. He's going to be an uncle again. Time to make that word mean something other than a story Beth tells her baby like she tells RJ, the wild uncle who lives in the woods instead of alongside his family.
Maybe he lost the opportunity he really wanted, but uncle? That he can manage, he's sure.
A/N: Canon compliant except for Beth's death through season 9, episode 6. This was supposed to be Bethyl. If you squint, it still could be, as I'm leaving the baby daddy deliberately vague.