A/N: So, this was a story I posted last year but I took it down because I didn't think people were liking it and I got distracted from working on it. But I have NOT stopped thinking about so I decided to work on it again, post it, and I hope you like it!

…

One. Custody Agreement.

When Daryl Dixon bought the house in the woods, it was the biggest thing he had ever done – and something he never thought he would ever do. After his entire life being spent, living in shit holes, or just crashing on one couch or another, home ownership was something so far away from what he knew, it wasn't even an idea he entertained.

But he had a good job. He worked in a refrigerator-storage warehouse and since they couldn't find enough guys to hire, Daryl made over twenty bucks an hour. He drove a forklift, unloading skids from semis and then, he loaded delivery trucks with those same skids. It was a good job with good money and he had already been talked to – more than once – about being made a manager because Daryl did a good job. He personally didn't think he was ready for that but it was still unbelievable to him that he would even be considered for any kind of higher-up position.

He was ready for something more for himself though. Personally speaking. He had the money now and it seemed like this paycheck was going to be steady. If anything, there was more work than could actually ever be done in a day at the warehouse so it seemed like Daryl would always have the chance to make more money if he needed it.

The house was white so it couldn't be lost on the wooded lot when everything was thick and green. Two stories, there were two bedrooms on the ground floor along with the living room, kitchen, dining room and a bathroom. Up the stairs, the attic open space had been converted into a bedroom with another attached bathroom. Daryl decided to take that upstairs bedroom for himself.

It was older with clapboard siding. The realtor said it had been built sometime in the '40s. All of the floors were hardwood – except the attic which had carpet – and every doorway was arched. There was a brick fireplace in the living room with the chimney going up one wall of the upstairs and Daryl thought that worked perfectly because if he ever felt like turning off the heat, he could just light a fire and have enough heat to sleep in his upstairs bed. The kitchen had two glass doors that opened onto an attached deck which Daryl actually wound up rebuilding himself because the wood underneath was nearing the point of rotting and Daryl found out he liked the idea of having a deck.

Daryl was of the mind that no one could actually own the woods but he wasn't going to argue. The lot was five acres in the woods and that also included a small creek and lake. He was pretty sure he got Beth pregnant in that lake but he didn't want to think about that. He actually didn't go to the lake that often for that reason.

When Joe was born, Daryl knew he wouldn't be able to use it for a few years but he still went ahead and ordered the plans from a website he found. He built his son a playground for the front yard because the backyard didn't have the room. It dropped off into a hill that led right into the trees.

He set up one of the two bedrooms on the ground floor for Joe, making sure he had everything he could need or want when he came to stay with Daryl in the woods. (The other bedroom had a foldout couch in case Merle ever decided to surprise him with the need for a place to crash.)

It wasn't the nicest or biggest house in the world but it was paradise to Daryl.

…

He met Beth Greene in court of all places. Not because he was appearing there but because Merle was – no surprise. Beth worked at the courthouse as a stenographer and she was always in Judge Andrea Harris's court, Judge Harris being the judge who always seemed to handle all the drug cases. And she was a tough lady. Especially to someone towards Merle who appeared in her court time and time again.

The defendant stood, the charges were read and Judge Harris doled her sentence out. Thirty days. Six months. Ten years. One after another and each one ended with a smack of her gavel. Daryl was pretty sure that Merle always made it worse for himself because he constantly tried to flirt with the Judge and the woman was not amused.

Daryl always showed up in court when his brother was appearing and his eyes seemed to just naturally drift over to the young, pretty blonde who sat at her stenography machine in front of the Judge's bench, typing everything that was said for every case. Sometimes, her hair was down and other times, her hair was pulled back and he would watch as she sometimes moved a hand to the back of her neck, rubbing it.

He didn't learn her name until later because while he noticed pretty girls, he was never the sort of guy to just walk up to one and start talking with them.

After work, a couple of the guys were heading to one of the bars in town and they asked Daryl if he wanted to come along. He had no reason to not go so he tagged along. And in that bar, Jed's, he saw the pretty stenographer sitting at the bar with another pretty woman, both of them laughing over something. Daryl stopped in his tracks when he saw her because he had only ever seen her in court and now, here she sat. It took him one beer – and her friend getting up to the go to the bathroom – before Daryl felt brave enough to go up to her. She actually recognized him from court.

She smiled the instant she saw him and Christ, even her smile was pretty. Her name was Beth Greene and after a minute or so of talking, Daryl found himself taking her friend's stool and they talked for almost an hour before Beth reluctantly said that she had to get back home.

Daryl asked her out right then and there.

…

They dated for almost seven months. He met her parents and she met Merle. They went to each other's work holiday parties, introducing one another to their coworkers as the girlfriend or the boyfriend. Beth shared an apartment with her best friend, Rosita, also a courtroom stenographer and when she had a new boyfriend, she asked Daryl and Beth to go on a double-date with them.

He spent a night here or there at her apartment but for the most part, Beth came to stay with Daryl at his house more nights during the week than not. He wanted to ask her to move in with him but the words were never actually able to leave his mouth for whatever reason. He should have asked her. She practically lived there already and it was asinine that she kept having to bring a bag with a change of clothes over all of the time but he could never seem to ask.

He couldn't even tell her that he loved her though he really did.

When Beth came over one night and told him that she was pregnant, the same thing happened.

Daryl knew exactly what he needed to do and he knew exactly what he wanted to do.

But again, he couldn't. He couldn't ask her to marry him. He figured that deep down, he knew that marrying him wasn't the thing that Beth should do for herself.

…

She didn't want to but he knew that it was the smart thing to do and he told her that much.

They went to family court so a child support agreement could be hammered out and both agreed to it. Beth made good enough money at her job but Daryl made good money, too, and there was no way he was going to have Beth do this on her own. This was his kid, too, and Beth didn't get pregnant without any help.

The kid wasn't even born yet but they also agreed to custody. They would live primarily with Beth and Daryl would get every other weekend as well as one week a month; whatever week he and Beth could agree on. The whole time they were discussing all of this with court-appointed lawyers, Daryl kept looking at her – trying to meet her eyes – but Beth was working damn hard to not meet his.

And he knew why. He got it.

It all came back to what Beth wanted to hear and what he couldn't say and if he was actually able to get a good look into her eyes, he would see how hurt she was.

Maybe he should have been glad she wouldn't look at him.

…

It'd be easy for Daryl to blame his own shitty parents and his shitty childhood. It's be easy to just fall back on being a Dixon and that be reason enough for everything he messed up.

But he didn't want to do that. He was an adult. He was about to have a kid and be a dad. Not being able to open his mouth and tell Beth that he loved her or he wanted to be with her and raise their kid together, that was all his fault. No one else's.

…

Daryl was in the kitchen but the windows were open so he heard the car coming up the gravel drive. He quickly washed and dried his hands and went to the front door. He stepped onto the front porch, smiling, as Beth's car pulled to a stop in front of the garage. She gave him a smile from through the windshield and he came down to meet her.

"Hi, dad!" Joe exclaimed from the backseat when Daryl opened the backdoor. As always, Joe had a soccer ball in his lap because they had started playing soccer in gym class and the boy was now officially obsessed with it.

"Hey, buddy," he gave a smile.

Beth got out from behind the wheel and carefully stepped onto the gravel. She was still dressed from work in a dress and heels. He knew the gravel made her a little nervous when she was wearing heels and Daryl's first instinct was to reach out and put a hand on her elbow to steady her. But he didn't.

Besides the occasional polite hug over the past few years, they didn't touch one another like that. Daryl wanted to but he didn't because he knew Beth wouldn't want him to do that.

Joe jumped from the backseat and dropping the ball, he took off running, kicking it as he went. Beth went to the trunk of the car and Daryl followed her. She popped the lid and pulled out Joe's overnight bag and Daryl took it, slinging the strap onto his shoulder.

"He's going to tell you he doesn't have to but he's still taking the cough syrup," Beth said.

Daryl nodded. "I thought that was jus' about gone."

"Almost but not quite yet."

They talked just about every day – about Joe, of course, and nothing else. It was a small town and he knew he could easily find out if something was going on with Beth but at the same time, he respected her privacy. If she wanted him to know something other than what had to do with their son, Daryl knew that she would tell him. But that hadn't happened in all of these years and he didn't expect it to.

He had been unable to tell her so many things and he figured that Beth was just returning the favor.

"It tastes like butt!" Joe shouted, having overheard as he kicked the ball around one of the trees.

Beth rolled her eyes but was smiling as she slammed the trunk again. She turned to Daryl and though her smile didn't disappear completely, it did shrink.

"Any plans this weekend?" She asked.

"Jus' the usual," he shrugged. "Pizza tonight and a movie. Prob'ly gonna kick that ball around with him for a while. And then tomorrow, whatever he feels like doin'." Beth nodded at that. "Wha' about you? Any big plans this weekend?" He asked even if he didn't expect an answer.

"Honestly? I'm just going to be sleeping and watching trash TV," she laughed a little and Daryl's own lips twitched in a smile. "It was a crazy week at court and I just want to be a blob this weekend."

"You deserve it."

Beth was an amazing mom – which came as a surprise to no one. Her entire life was Joe and with her job at the courthouse, she could be spread a little thin most times. But she always handled it. In seven years, she had only called Daryl four times to ask him if he could take Joe because she just needed a break to breathe.

He wished she was home already. He wished she pulled into this driveway and was home and could go inside because she lived here. All three of them did.

That wasn't how things were though because he could never open his mouth and just tell this woman what was on his mind. Even all of this time later – and with a kid between them – he still couldn't.

"Joe!" Beth called out. "I'm leaving!"

Kicking his soccer ball one more time, letting it bounce against a tree, he then came running back to his parents. With a grin, he went into his mom's open arms and Beth kissed his head and hugged him tightly. Joe hugged his arms around her waist.

"I love you. Be good for your dad this weekend and have fun," she told him as she always told him.

"Love you, too," Joe said and she kissed his head again.

Beth got back into her car and Daryl threw an arm around Joe's neck, the boy grinning as his dad put him into a playful headlock. Both watched as Beth reversed and turned the car around, giving them a wave as she headed back down the gravel drive towards the road.

"Come on. Le's get your stuff inside and you got some cough syrup to take," Daryl said, ruffling the boy's hair before heading towards the front steps.

"Dad," Joe began to whine.

"Come on," Daryl didn't let him finish and reached back, putting a hand on the back of Joe's head and bringing him with him. "Mom says you still need it and we're not goin' against mom."

…

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