When Beth awakes, she's disoriented for a brief moment. The bed she's in is too narrow to be anything she's slept in for a long time now, and it isn't until she hears Judith's quiet babbling that her brain fully boots with the prior day's events. She drags in a deep breath to calm herself, feeling happy tears threaten at seeing Judith playing with her little bare feet like she doesn't have a care in the world.
Shane's arm tightens around her as he chuckles softly, leaning in to whisper in her ear. "She woke up about ten minutes ago. Hasn't looked over here yet, so I'm guessing she's used to waking up before Sophia."
That's why the bed is so odd. She and Shane are sleeping in Sophia's twin bed in the room she shares with Judith, after Sophia declared Andre was still small enough to share. The girl's sweet kindness in making sure Beth would wake in the same room as Judith makes her tears actually escape, slipping down to splash onto Shane's forearm.
He seems to understand, holding her close but not trying to turn her to face him like he normally would to comfort her. There's no way she could give up the view of Judith right now. Neither could he if he's laid here for that long, just watching Judith talk to herself and nibble her own feet. She is glad that the dogs slept downstairs, because Biscuit's reaction to tears is usually a noisy movement that might startle Judith.
Eventually, a combination of her bladder and the urge to hold Judith again help her control the tears, so she wiggles until Shane moves his arm. As soon as she moves, Judith's attention zones in on her with what looks like long habit of having someone always in the room with her.
The toddler's eyes widen comically as she shouts, "Bet!" Rolling over, Judith is on her feet at the crib rail before Beth reaches her, still chanting Beth's name.
"I missed you, too, darling. I bet you are still a soggy diaper girl first thing of a morning, right?"
She lifts Judith into her arms, checking that, yes, the toddler's diaper has made it through the night, but only barely. There's a changing table with supplies, so at least Alexandria hasn't suffered for that. Then again, she didn't see any other children Judith's size in her brief introduction to the community, unlike her glimpses of Hilltop.
Shane joins her, reaching out to distract Judith as Beth unfastens the onesie to sort out the diaper change. Beth knows the toddler's ease with Shane is less some magical knowledge of him and more the flexible nature of a child raised by multiple adults, but it still makes her smile when Judith alerts to him with a smile now graced with eight teeth instead of just the two bottom teeth she'd had in October.
"You've got the prettiest brown eyes I've ever seen," Shane tells Judith, who cackles and makes a grab for him.
That's another change that Beth missed. When the prison fell, it was obvious that Judith's eyes were darkening, but they'd still been a greenish-hazel, not this dark. In the months since, now they've darkened to the shade of brown she knows will turn copper in sunlight like Shane's.
Judith's smile, though? That's still Lori, through and through, and it makes Beth wonder what Shane thinks seeing it. For all the complexity of his relationship with Lori, she knows he did love her, and she can't imagine it's any less bittersweet for Shane than it is for Rick, Carl, or anyone else who misses Lori.
Will their baby share features between them as much? Beth sure hopes so, although the part of her that will always miss Hershel would love to see her father's blue eyes passed on at least once. She isn't sure if that's even possible in Shane's family heritage.
"Can you take her? I really gotta pee."
Shane laughs, lifting Judith into his arms with a deftness that makes it seem like he's been doing it for months instead of for the first time. He starts talking to Judith softly, too low for her to hear once she clears the threshold. By the time she returns, Shane has company, and Beth isn't surprised that it's the other kids.
The older two greet her with the same enthusiasm as Judith, hugging her tightly, while Shane is the object of Andre's intense curiosity. Beth can't really call Andre a toddler anymore, since if the world hadn't turned upside down, he'd be starting kindergarten in the fall. He'd been happy to see her, but the stranger being welcomed like family is obviously far more interesting for Andre's endless curiosity. It doesn't hurt that Shane is going along with the endless question routine with an amused smile and the sort of patience that reminds her how many of the photos she liberated from his King County home contained Carl at various ages.
It turns out that Luuk had the idea about the supplies on the Tranquility already, because by the time they all head downstairs to let the dogs out, Luuk and the Marines have returned with a well-laden truck. Shane, Carl, and Sophia go out to help unload, even as the other adults of the household venture downstairs.
"You could have woken me to come fix his breakfast," Michonne ventures quietly as she sees Beth sitting at the table with Andre in the chair beside her and Judith in her lap.
Beth just smiles at Michonne, reaching out to tickle Andre, who giggles in between nibbling on a pancake. The kitchen had had flour, so Beth had dipped into hers and Shane's supply of freeze dried fruit, grateful just like making the middle-of-the-night oatmeal that Montserrat's leaders collected the handy machines to make fruit preserved and portable in more ways than just canning jars. Powdering the freeze dried bananas made tasty pancakes that both kids are happy to eat without syrup or topping.
"It's been a long time since I got to hang out with Andre. I don't mind. He helped powder up the bananas, too. There's plenty of food and more supplies coming." Beth motions at the pancakes still stacked on the serving platter. Shane and the teens had grabbed a few each on their way out the door when Luuk sent a messenger.
Michonne sits next to Andre and helps herself, and Carol follows suit.
"Rude to let such a nice breakfast go uneaten," Carol tells Rick and Daryl, which makes the men finally stop hovering and take a seat themselves.
Carol, Beth, and Michonne keep up a seemingly random chatter about life on Montserrat, but Beth sees how Rick's shoulders slump more and more. He's barely eating even with small nudges from Carol, his gaze going anxiously to the door. It takes Beth a little while to realize that he's worried about the fact that Luuk's trip would have been to communicate with his commander back home, not just to fetch supplies.
He isn't the only one acting nervous, and Beth knows she's got to tackle the issue between herself and Daryl before it festers. She can only imagine how much he's taken personal blame for her kidnapping and seeming death. Daryl's nerves turn to that half-offended body language he wore back at the farm and for a few months after when Shane, Sophia, and Carl return, each carrying a laden box. The glare he turns on Shane? That's got to be handled, too.
She chooses her moment carefully, though, waiting until Carl and Sophia are happily showing off what's in the boxes. It's no more than a handful of days of food, but it'll tide everyone over while a wider plan is developed while they wait on the boats to arrive from the islands. Shane snags Rick by the elbow, leading him toward the back door, so she presumes he has news to share. With everyone busy, Beth plunks Judith onto one hip and weaves around the table to capture herself her own wayward family member.
To his credit, Daryl doesn't protest being led away, following her upstairs and waiting as she sets Judith down to play with toys on a soft mat on the floor. It's nice, seeing her with so many things to play with, and that she's relaxed and happy even with the frequent looks darted Beth's way to confirm she's still here.
Daryl looks like she is going to be angry at him, flinching just a little when she stands from where she crouched to rattle toys for Judith. When all she does is hug him tightly, he returns the embrace with the same fierce grip he did yesterday morning. They'd cried then, and they do now.
"I lost you," he mutters, voice thick with emotion. "Just like I lost Merle. I wasn't fast enough to get to you, either, and it was my fault."
"You didn't lose me, Daryl. Assholes kidnapped me." She moves back enough that she can meet his eyes. The Merle part is more than she can tackle today, but it does settle a warm little glow deep in her chest that Daryl ranks her as important as his brother, considering Beth's own sibling doesn't take as much care. "And I escaped because you taught me enough to pay attention to my surroundings and take advantage when they were distracted."
Beth knows that her survival was made incredibly easy by crossing paths with Shane so quickly, so that she didn't have to test her knowledge completely, but knowing what she knows now about survival? She would have managed to keep herself alive. Maybe she wouldn't have gotten the adventures she did, but Daryl had taught her enough to get by.
"I looked for you," he tells her, still sounding broken. "Fell in with the wrong group." The tale of the Claimers comes out in halting words, and Beth understands that his guilt over her own disappearance got compounded by the time with those terrible men.
It also explains why Rick seems broken in ways that the conflict with the Governor didn't manage. Once, Beth wanted nothing more than to see Rick suffer for his pride leading to the fall of the prison. Now? Maybe it's time, distance, and happiness, but she can't imagine any punishment for the man worse than what the world's already delivered, between the Claimers, Terminus, and now the Governor.
"I was lucky," she soothes Daryl, leading him to sit on the twin bed. "You weren't. And you need to let go of whatever blame you've given yourself. I'm alive and healthy and happy."
"And married," he grumbles. "He's not your type."
The petulant tone in the last part makes Beth laugh despite the fact that it irks her as well. "I'm not sure anyone has a type anymore, Daryl. Jimmy and I were kids who wouldn't have survived the end of high school even if the world hadn't turned upside down. And Zach? Daryl, you know that was more him than me."
Beth feels a bit guilty looking back, especially with how Zach died so needlessly due to someone else's mistake, but they'd just been two lonely people of similar age. Not everyone scratches an itch and ends up in a relationship like Maggie and Glenn did. Hell, Beth had never felt attracted to Zach enough to make the effort to find a way to take that final step together.
"I was in a fog for a long time when we lived at the prison. I had Judith and nothing else really mattered beyond her and our family. It took thinking I lost everyone to make me want to live again," she explains, reaching up to cup Daryl's face between her hands, stroking his scruffy cheeks gently before dropping her hands to his shoulders. "To really live and not just exist as Judith's adoptive mama and your sister and my daddy's daughter. You understand that?"
She thinks maybe he does, because Daryl had been his own sort of loner back at the prison, ignoring all the offers that came his way until she'd figured maybe he had no interest at all. But now, even with the shock still riding him hard on her resurrection from the dead, she can't miss the quiet contentment she sees in him whenever Michonne and Andre are close.
"It's hard to think of him as a good man," Daryl admits, and Beth understands. The last Daryl remembers of Shane is the disintegration at the farm. "Ain't that he's too old for you." He sighs deeply. "Toward the end, he reminded me of Merle on his worst days."
"Don't think he's the only one of us that took a tour through crazy for a while. He'd found his way back long before I met him again."
If thinking everyone died horribly didn't break Shane right open all over again, Beth thinks nothing much will be able to again. She feels similarly about the scars on her wrist, where she nearly took her own life because the world gone wrong was too much for her to handle. Maybe it's because she remembers that level of despair that she understands Shane's breakdown so well.
"He's good to you?" The question is tentative, as if Daryl's trying to figure out a polite way to ask without crossing lines into information a brother doesn't want to know.
"Yeah, he is." She flashes Daryl a mischievous grin. "Had to chase him like a villain in some old movie, though. Maybe that's why he's my type. I had to work for it, like I bet you made Michonne."
It shocks Daryl into a bark of laughter that turns Judith's attention to them, so that she gets to her feet and toddles over. Patting their knees, she demands to be lifted up into their laps, cuddling to Beth's chest while reaching out to grip Daryl's shirt. It's such a perfect mimic of her old way of keeping whoever sat next to Beth close that Beth wonders just what Judith will think of having a sibling. Will the new baby cuddle like this and reach out to Judith? She hopes so.
"Hey, Daryl?" she says softly, leaning into his shoulder like she used to all the time. "You're going to be an uncle again, you know. Judy's gonna be a big sister."
It feels far more natural telling him first, out of all her family here. He's always wanted to be part of her life.
When he freezes, she thinks he's going to react badly, but then his arm snakes around her to give her the gentlest damned hug she's ever gotten from him. "You've got a real doctor and a real hospital on that island, right?"
There's the same underlying fear in Daryl's voice that she heard in Shane's when she first told him she wanted a baby. The difference in the two is that Daryl was there when Maggie emerged from that dark doorway carrying a bloody, motherless baby. He's trembling softly, so she eases an arm around his waist to return the hug.
"Yeah. He's delivered at least a dozen babies on that island. I've actually delivered a baby myself with him supervising. I'll be safe. Maggie will be safe when we get her there, too."
"Good."
They stay leaned together like that, even Judith content to just cuddle, until eventually, someone braves the stairs to draw them back to the reality of planning to move entire communities thousands of miles by boat. But Beth and Daryl have made their peace, so now the rest is just logistics to get her family safe on Montserrat, where madmen can't sneak up and demand tribute.
Her baby will arrive safely and loved by such a large family, and nothing in this chaotic, unpredictable world means more than that.