I'm not TOO happy with this chapter but it is what it is. I didn't feel like trying to rewrite it.
I don't know where this is in canon, tbh. Sometime between 5x15 and 5x16. But the whole thing with Jessie and Pete isn't really happening. Alexandria is more peaceful than in canon, because I said so.
As her hair caught the glow of the lamplight in the corner of his eye, Daryl's responding flinch didn't go unnoticed. Carol gave him a questioning look with worry lurking in her eyes. He chose to ignore it, leaning further into the shadow so that no one saw how quickly his skin lost its color. Of all the times he'd seen her, this somehow struck him deeper than any other. Cross-legged on the floor not two feet away from him, looking on with a sad smile as Judith crawled around to whatever lap she felt deserved her attention at that moment.
"She's gettin' big," Beth said quietly.
Daryl didn't dare look her way, lifting his thumb to chew on his nail as he kept his eyes fixed firmly on the ground. It had never happened like this, with other people around. He had to wonder if he'd summoned her from the depths of his mind as he watched Judith play around, since the little girl always brought to mind the one person who had taken care of her more than any other at the prison.
"Remember that first day with her?" Beth said, sounding as if she didn't even mind that he wouldn't answer. "You saved her life, goin' out there to find that formula."
He felt her eyes on him and shifted enough to give a shrug that no one else noticed.
"Wasn't nothin," he might have said if the others weren't around.
"It was everything," Beth might have responded if he did.
She hummed in his peripheral as the activity swelled around them. Maggie and Glenn were so close together on a couch that it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began, sharing it only with Tara. Rick and Michone were snickering at something that Carl described with waving motions of his hands. Carol sat close to Sasha, a soothing balm to the latter's weary, raging spirit. Rosita sat in front of Tara, sipping on a glass of wine as the other woman wove her hair into a complicated mess of braids. Abraham was on the wall that evening and the room was quieter without his boisterous voice.
Daryl found himself pulled out of his quiet watchfulness by a tug on his boot. Casting his eyes to the source, he couldn't help the twitch of his lips as Judith gave him a smile, still pulling at the laces that she had no hope of untying. When he wiggled his foot gently, she let out a bright giggle and batted at the steel toes of his boot with delight in her eyes. Then her hands fisted in his pants as she tried to hoist herself over his bent knees, a small line forming between her eyebrows when she fell back on her rump. Judith looked at him with wide eyes as if she had no idea what happened only to let out another laugh as she stretched her arms towards him.
"Alright," he mumbled, giving her a put-upon look that no one else in the room believed. "C'mere, Lil' Asskicker."
Carefully grasping her under the arms, he hoisted her up into his lap with an exaggerated groan and stretched his legs out to make room for her. She made no secret of her satisfaction, squealing enthusiastically as she slapped her hands against the arm he wrapped around her stomach to keep her from toppling right off. Daryl pretended not to notice the specter in the room shifting closer to the both of them only to look up when he heard the soft, melodic tones of her laughter.
"She loves you," Beth said, her eyes shining as she looked into his.
Daryl chewed at his lower lip, looking down as Judith entertained herself by yanking at the frayed threads on the knee of his pants.
"Loved you more," he mumbled so quietly that it sounded like nothing more than a hum to anyone else in the room.
But she understood. Settling against the wall next to him, Beth drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her shins.
"You'll keep lookin' after her for me," she said with certainty,
Daryl swallowed the words that rose in his throat. That she should have been the one sitting there, rocking Judith in her arms and singing to her quietly, putting her to sleep like she did all those nights in the prison. He wondered if the little girl remembered Beth at all. If she found herself looking around for a flash of blonde hair or straining her ears for the sound of a song that they would never hear again. As if hearing his thoughts, Judith leaned into his chest with a small, whimpering sigh. Daryl couldn't help but lift his hand to cradle the back of her head, sweeping his fingers through her downy hair as he let his own head rest on the wall, his eyes falling closed.
"Five," Beth whispered, a catch in her voice.
The conversation around the room quieted to a lull as Judith slowly fell asleep to the rise and fall of his chest and the thrum of his heart against her ear. He was the only one who could hear the humming turn to singing, filling his ears until he drifted off to sleep as well.
I'd love to hear your thoughts!