…

Daryl and Beth talked about it extensively as they drove back to Georgia with the kids in the back seat, playing on their iPads or napping and by the time they pulled in front of their house again, Daryl set on going into Abraham's office first thing tomorrow morning and letting him know their decision.

"Hell," Abraham sighed heavily as Daryl sat across from him. "I knew you would take it. You'd be an idiot to not take it. I was still hoping-" He stopped himself abruptly. "Let's let Julie know and we'll get the paperwork and transfer started and all of that fun stuff and we'll video conference with the BM of the Bennington branch. Milton Mamet. I think you'll like him. Kind of a nerdy guy but he's damn good at what he does. Corporate's been after him a long time to move him to headquarters but he wants to stay put where he is."

From there, things moved at neck-breaking speed.

GE was fully paying for the Dixon family to move to Bennington and the movers were even going to pack for them. Daryl and Beth put down an offer on the Mill Mountain Road house, which went through without a hitch, and they then spoke with a local realtor to put their house in the woods on the market.

Then, it was time to tell the family.

Beth was terrified for this next step but obviously, it was one to be taken. They couldn't just move to West Virginia and tell her daddy when the moving van was pulling out of town. Surprisingly, Hershel actually took it well. So well, Beth would have been a little insulted if she wasn't so relieved.

"It's only six hours away," Hershel gave his daughter a warm smile before embracing her.

Beth nodded. "And Shawn can help you set up the laptop so we can video chat, too. You won't miss anything. I promise."

Hershel just kept smiling though. They sat on the front porch of the Greene farmhouse, side-by-side, on the top step, looking over the land that stretched before them.

"This could be considered a good thing," he stated and Beth turned her head, looking at him; waiting for him to continue and explain. "Don't get me wrong. I'm going to miss you, Daryl and my grandkids like crazy and I already know that some mornings, I'm going to wake up and just absolutely hate that you're all so far away from me, but I still think it's good. When our family came over here from Ireland, they had nothing and didn't know anything about this country but they came because it's what was good for their family and they worked hard to give us all of this. I love having you so close but you and Daryl, striking out on your own, this is a good thing for your family."

Beth smiled at that and leaned into him. "I'm excited but a little scared, too. I've never been too far away from you."

And she didn't care that she was a grown woman; a wife and a mother. This was her dad and no matter how old she was, Hershel still treated her like she was still no higher than his knee. That might have been annoying but instead, Beth loved it. She loved that she was always his little girl.

Having her own children, she now understood it because it would never matter to her how old Olive and Chris got. They would always be her babies and she would do anything for them. She wouldn't necessarily want either of them living in her basement as adults but she would always take care of them.

"As you told me, I'll be just a laptop away," he smiled. "And I still have these three idiots here with me."

Beth grinned at that and Hershel kept smiling, leaning over and kissing her head.

Maggie, Shawn and Glenn, on the other hand, did not take it well and immediately began yelling their objections as soon as Daryl and Beth broke the news to them during the weekly Greene family movie night.

"You can't!" Maggie grabbed Chris and hauled the toddler into her lap, holding him tightly. "I refuse to let you take either of them with you."

Shawn had done the same with Olive, lifting the girl up into his arms. "I will never put her down. I swear to God, Beth. You'll have to just move us with you or NOT move at all."

"Glad no one's bein' dramatic 'bout this," Daryl said in his dry tone as he got up to get himself more pizza.

"I'm from West Virginia, Uncle Shawn!" Olive then exclaimed with excitement.

The girl nor her brother fully understood what was happening. They just knew that they would be moving to the new house in the woods that they walked through and their daddy and mama promised that Moseley and all of their toys would be coming, too, and that was what mattered to them.

Shawn frowned at his niece. "Don't you ever say that again. You're from Georgia and don't you forget it."

"I better still get letters from Detective Butt," Glenn told Chris, poking him gently in his stomach. "Promise me. You guys can't move away from me and take away the best Detective there ever was, too."

"I promise!" Chris promised, matching his sister's excitement.

"Tell us about the house," Maggie looked to Beth.

Olive took it upon herself to answer. "It's in the woods and there's a creek!"

"It's a ranch," Beth added. "Three bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms, a full basement and an attached garage."

Maggie narrowed her eyes at her sister. "Stop sounding so excited."

Beth laughed, not able to help herself. "It's perfect. Just as perfect as our house here."

"A full basement and garage sounds nice," Shawn loathed to admit. He knew that his sister absolutely loved the house they lived in now, but he also knew that those were two things that Beth had wished she had.

"And the job is a good one?" Maggie now asked Daryl. It must be if Daryl and Beth were uprooting and moving six hours away. Still, she needed to hear it for herself. "Is Bennington nice?"

"They call it a Holler!" Olive exclaimed what she had learned during their weekend visiting the town.

Daryl settled himself back in his chair with his plate of pizza and he nodded at Maggie's question. "'s a really good promotion. The warehouse up in Bennington handles most of West Virginia, eastern Kentucky and a bit of Virginia so 's gonna be a lot more work but the bosses think I can handle it."

"Of course you're going to be able to handle it," Beth told him what she had told him so many times already.

Daryl sometimes asked Beth if she ever got tired of being his own, personal cheerleader because that's something she had always been – even before they got together – and he figured it must have been exhausting for her. He knew that sometimes, talking to him and trying to convince of something, a person would be more successful in getting through to a piece of coal. But Beth never gave up on him even when Daryl felt like giving up on himself and he felt like Beth should, too.

Now, he smiled at her and she smiled back.

"Are you going to give piano lessons, too, in Bennington?" Hershel asked Beth.

"I would like to, but I think, for a while, I'm just going to work on getting all of us settled. Maybe after the holidays, I can start looking around town to see if anyone wants to learn piano. That would be the first hurdle," Beth said and she smiled when Chris began to wiggle on Maggie's lap, clearly wanting to be put down, but Maggie just held him tighter. "Would you like to see pictures of the house?" She offered.

"What? You have those and haven't showed us yet?" Shawn all but exclaimed.

With her phone, Beth came to settle down on the couch next to Maggie and Glenn leaned over so he could see, and Shawn squeezed himself to sit down on the other side of Beth. She lifted her eyes to look to Hershel, still sitting in his armchair with his pizza.

"I'll wait my turn," he gave her a smile and Beth smiled, too, before beginning to flip through the pictures, Maggie, Shawn and Glenn all squeezing in tighter so they could all see.

And with her being a bit distracted now, Chris was able to wiggle himself until he was free from his aunt's hold. The boy slid off of Maggie's lap and scurried away before she could snatch him up again.

…

On Daryl's last day, Abraham closed the office for lunch and took the entire office out to BW3.

Oscar, who he and Daryl had worked the night shift together years earlier before Daryl's daytime promotion, would now be taking over as warehouse manager and he came out for the farewell lunch, too.

"Look at you. You're a company man now," Oscar said with a grin, setting his glass of beer down on the table. "GE needs something done in one of their warehouses, you're now going to be the man they call first."

"Stop," Daryl muttered, feeling the tips of his ears grow hot.

He picked up his own beer glass as Oscar kept on grinning. Daryl was honored to be getting this promotion but he was not a company man. Maybe it was the southerner in him or hearing stories from his coal-mining cousins in Kentucky. Dixons were as south as people could be and a company man sounded like a carpetbagger or scab and who the Hell wanted to be that?

"You know I'm just teasing," Oscar said as if he was reading his mind. Oscar was just as southern as him. "I'm happy for you, man. You and Beth and the kids will love it up there."

"You ever been to West Virginia?"

"No, but it always looks pretty on TV."

Daryl snorted and Oscar grinned before he tapped his glass against Daryl's.

Beth and the kids showed up then, completely surprising Daryl, as did Hershel, Maggie, Glenn and Shawn. Even Rick Grimes came for the celebration. Other friends showed up – even Beth's piano students and their parents – and the lunch was no longer just a lunch but it became an entire going-away party for the whole Dixon family.

"Did you plan all of this?" Daryl asked Abraham as the waitress arrived to take more orders.

"Tara did," Abraham gave a grin before taking a sip of his beer and nodded his head towards Tara at the other end of the table. "You know she's the one who really runs thing. But we got permission from Julie to do this and the funds."

Again, Daryl found himself going completely quiet, having no idea what to think. Not only had his boss and boss's boss put his name in for a promotion – having thought of him in the first place – but now, they were using company funds to celebrate him and send him off to his new job within the company. He knew Beth kept telling him that he was good at his job and of course his company would recognize that and even with everything that had been happening, Daryl supposed it would still take a while for him to truly grasp it.

He sure as Hell better grasp it sooner rather than later.

They were moving that weekend and it was too late for him to go back and change his mind.

…

Their house was all packed up, everything taken apart or packed away in boxes, ready for the moving van to arrive tomorrow morning and load it all up except for a few essentials that would be packed away in the car with them.

Olive and Chris were excited to be sleeping in their sleeping bags on the living room floor since their beds were taken apart and it took them a while to settle down and get them to actually lay down.

"We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow," Beth said as she and Daryl finally got them tucked in. "We're driving to our new home and the movers will be unpacking the big moving van and tomorrow night, we'll be falling asleep in West Virginia."

"And I talked with Clementine today and a bunch of the family is gonna be comin' over the next few days to visit and help us out," Daryl added. "And she told me to tell you that she's bringin' biscuits."

"Yay!" Olive promptly burst out at that because that was the only thing that mattered.

Beth laughed and kissed her good-night.

She was grateful that Daryl's family would be coming to help them. Not tomorrow. Tomorrow would be hectic with the movers unloading everything and Daryl just had so many cousins, everyone would be getting in everyone's way, but in the next few days, they would be coming. Her own family would be coming up next weekend to see their new home but with Daryl's family now only three hours away, they would be able to visit one another more often than just a few times a year. It wouldn't still be exactly down the road but family relatively close – driving distance – was better than moving clear across the country with absolutely no one they knew being around.

The kids finally dropped off into sleep and Beth got herself ready for bed. With their queen-bed dismantled and leaning against the wall with the mattress, the room looked so much bigger. The dresser drawers were all empty, as was the closet, and even the shag rug on the floor was rolled up, leaning against the wall as well.

From her bag of essentials, Beth changed into her pajamas and listened to the quietness around her that had become her nightly soundtrack for the past few years; the quietness that came with living in the woods with no one else around for a few miles. Tomorrow night, she'd be listening to the West Virginia night sounds and she wondered how different it would be compared to Georgia's.

She was excited to find out. Nervous, too, of course, but the excitement far outweighed anything else.

Through the front screen door, Beth saw that Daryl was sitting on the top step of the porch, also listening to the night. She took her jacket down from the hook on the wall next to the door and went out to join him. He turned his head to look back to her and they shared a smile. Moseley was sitting on the step below, set between Daryl's legs, enjoying Daryl rubbing him down, and Beth came to sit herself down next to Daryl.

They were quiet, looking out into the darkness of the woods, and Beth rested her head on Daryl's arm.

"'fore I got this place, I didn't have anything. My Grandma Liv and Grandpa Chris was dead. My ma was dead. Merle was dead. I was doin' everything I could to push you away and keep you that way. I didn' know I had any other family anywhere. But then I bought this place for myself and I was doing good at work and I finally admitted to myself that you were the only person I wanted to share all of this with. None of this would be happenin' for me if it weren't for you."

"Not exactly true but I'll take the compliment," she replied and then lifted her head to kiss him on the cheek. Daryl turned his head to look at her, smiling a little, too. "Tomorrow night-" she said, "-after we put Olive and Chris to bed, we can sit on our new front porch just like this and listen to what it sounds like at night around our new home."

Daryl looked at her for a moment after she said that and she gave him the smallest smile. He then began to smile, too – that little smile he always gave when he smiled – and leaning in, he softly kissed her forehead.

"Sounds good to me."

…

The next morning, they got themselves up and dressed and the movers arrived by seven. It took a couple of hours to get everything loaded into the van and Daryl and Beth did one more walkthrough of their cabin – now under contingent by an interested buyer – to make sure they have everything and then, they were done. Both Olive and Chris did their best to twist around in their seats so they could see the cabin one last time as Daryl drove them away but all they could really see was the moving van following after them.

"One more stop," Daryl told them all before heading out of town and Beth almost felt like crying when she saw the parking lot he was pulling into.

And in the doughnut shop, T-Dog, the owner, stood behind the counter and it looked like he was about to start crying, too. He came around and he and Beth instantly embraced one another in the tightest hug.

"Now, don't you find another doughnut shop up there and replace me," T-Dog told them both.

"We could never replace you," Beth promised him.

How could they possibly? Beth met Daryl here – after her old boyfriend had slapped her and she came in here to call the police – and then, after that, they kept meeting here. They never actually discussed it. It was just one of those silent things they both seemed to agree on – meet at T-Dog's in the morning for coffee and doughnuts. Sometimes, they talked. Sometimes, Beth did all of the talking and Daryl didn't say a word.

For Beth, she had fallen in love here. It had all started for her in this doughnut shop. How could she ever even think of replacing this place?

Daryl got three cups of coffee for the movers and two cups for him and Beth. He then got six doughnuts to take out to the movers and then got a dozen for the Dixon family so it could last them the weekend since T-Dog was right. There wasn't another doughnut shop like his anywhere near them in their new home and Daryl supposed he wanted to get them while he still could. Not that they would never be back in town again but it would be a while before they came back for a visit.

He and Beth chose carefully of all of the different varieties and T-Dog got two fresh chocolate chip cookies for Olive and Chris. "For later," he said, slipping them into a paper bag and putting them on top of the box before handing it all over to Beth. "No, Daryl," the man then said as Daryl pulled out his wallet.

T-Dog held up his hands and shook his head. Daryl frowned heavily at him.

"No, T. You're givin' away your whole shop to us this mornin'."

T-Dog snorted. "You may be my best customers but you're not my only customers, Daryl Dixon. Now take the damn doughnuts and coffee and shut up." He looked to Beth with a smile. "You drive safe now, you hear? West Virginia needs to know how lucky they are to be getting all of you."

Beth was really going to start crying now. She hugged T-Dog again but not trusting herself to speak, she took the doughnut box and coffees, heading back outside where Olive and Chris were waiting in their car. Daryl watched her go before looking back to T-Dog. He held out his hand and T-Dog shook it firmly, giving Daryl a wide grin.

"I'm going to have to figure out how to ship some doughnuts up to you in West Virginia," the man said.

"You better," Daryl smirked a little.

He almost wanted to hug T-Dog like Beth had and thank him – for everything. But instead, he just shook T-Dog's hand again – firmly – and with one more nod of his head, Daryl turned, left the doughnut shop and went back to the car where his family was waiting. He wanted to get to West Virginia and their new home while there was still plenty of daylight.

…

Funny story. I was aiming to finish and post this on FRIDAY but I suppose better late than never.

THANK YOU so much for reading and commenting on this one! I actually have my next Daryl/Beth idea to start writing but I'm going to be taking it easy this week and hopefully, will get started on it sometime next week. I hope everyone - who celebrates - has the best Thanksgiving. Thank you again!