The devil made me do it.

Chapter 3

"I'm just a small girl in a big world trying to find somebody to love." - Marilyn Monroe

"I don't care, Maggie. I'm the one who had to see it. I saw his ass Maggie. Daryl's ass!" Glenn whispered furiously just as Daryl walked into the small area they had set up for meals and meetings.

"Mornin'" Daryl grumbled as he walked past. He fuckin' knew it. Hadn't he told her? He wasn't mad as much as he was annoyed. He and Beth had woken up this morning and they'd started to fool around and all he could think about was Glenn and his stupid ass maybe outside his cell listening. Or worse her pops and it was something he couldn't even begin to think about. But he was the first to admit that Beth's body was something that would bring the strongest men down. If he were Superman he guessed she'd be his Kryptonite. His ultimate weakness and he knew she'd be the death of him with her knowing little smirks she sent his way during the day but fuck, what a way to go!

And he didn't have the problem that most men had. He could get his gun out of the holster so to speak, but the gun just wouldn't fuckin' fire no matter how much he pushed Beth's thighs all the way behind her head and fucked her all the way through the floor of his cell, her gasping his name. She'd not had any problems, mind you. She'd been able to fire off three orgasms in the time it took him to eat her out and three more while he was banging the hell out of her. The last time she'd come so hard she'd nearly blacked out and as enthralled as he was by watching her come and as much as he loved making her do it, it would have been nice if he could have had just one orgasm. Just one to her twelve or however many it was. He lost count.

Things were like that with Beth. Just added up and mounting up until you didn't know which end was up (or some shit). Like now, even though he'd dropped every hint in the book that he just wanted to be left alone, maybe go out and hunt for a bit (and if he rubbed one out thinking about her milky white thighs and how he liked to spend hours with his tongue pressed between them, working every nerve until she melted beneath him, well so be it). But no, she'd insisted that they go to breakfast together because well it was only fair. It was on the tip of his tongue to ask how fair their score was that morning as far as who came and who didn't. He was 0 for shit the way he figured it. But he kept that to himself, convincing himself that's what a gentleman would do (or some shit).

He took the large carafe of coffee and poured Beth a cup and handed it to her and then fixed one for himself and he turned back around. "What? You ain't seen nobody fix somebody a cup o' coffee before?" He directed his question to Glenn who still hadn't shut his mouth and he wondered if he was used to inserting his foot in it or if it was a new talent when he uttered his next words.

"Nah just you guys came together is all." Daryl just gaped at his unintended innuendo and Glenn seemed to realize his blunder as soon as it was out of his mouth and he wisely shut it with a snap while Daryl just glared at him.

A giggle came from beside him. He shot her a warning look and she had the good grace to look chagrined at least but he saw the smirk behind her eyes. "Sorry." She muttered. She wasn't fooling him one bit. She thought this was fuckin' hilarious.

"Dixon!" Maggie's voice boomed from across the room where she'd been eyeing him. Beth had been watching her carefully just waiting for her to blow her stack. Predictably she'd walked up to him, hearing the whole exchange between her husband and Daryl. Beth held her breath, hoping this wasn't going to get ugly. She let Daryl face her sister down. She knew how important it was for him to assert himself without prompting. Her face was inches from his. "What are your intentions with my baby sister?" Her face was coolly contained ire. It was almost as if she was annoyed by the situation more than anger. It confused the hell out of him but then again, this was a Greene girl he was talking to. Hell if he'd ever been able to figure Beth out. He should have figured her sister would be no different.

Daryl eyed her up and down and stepped back away from her, letting her know (without his fists thank you very much) that she was in his personal space. Thing was it had him standing flush at Beth's side and his hands were stiff at his sides until he felt her fingers sneak unobtrusively over to link just the ends of their pinky fingers together. No one could see if he wasn't comfortable with it. He glanced at her at first and he saw the hopeful look in her eyes. Like she was just hoping he wasn't going to push her away and he realized in that moment that he needed to bring her more daisies. He realized too that maybe flowers weren't enough anymore and he'd have to step up his game (not that had it; Daryl Dixon did not have any such thing as 'game'). Just how to do that though was the bigger question. He shelved it for now and showed her the best way he could in this moment, the one that mattered most. He slid his fingers all the way into her delicate grasp and laced their fingers together, just like she'd taught him to do all those weeks ago.

Before he'd met Beth Greene and they'd gotten to be so close he'd never paid too much attention to the how of holding hands. But he found himself noticing things like that more and more now. Like the exact shade of blue in her eyes when she was sad about something but didn't want to admit it, the taste of her lips when he kissed her (both sets of lips), the exact amount of syllables she drug his name out as she fell apart around him and the exact way her skin felt as he snuck up behind her with a bouquet of daisies, running his lips over the back of her neck. These are just some of the things that were on the tip of his tongue to tell Maggie but instead he said the next thing that came to his mind. The natural progression of things was that he wanted to do these things with Beth every day. For the rest of their miserable lives in this miserable shit world, he wanted to wake up every morning to her snuggled beside him and go to breakfast with their fingers locked together. Just them against the world (or some shit). And for right now, against Maggie Greene.

He didn't have enough words for the shit that ran through his head, he never had. So he went with something simple. "Wanna marry her." Well that wasn't at all what he planned on saying but it shut Maggie up and now she looked just as stupid as her husband standing there gaping at the two of them.

He heard a quiet gasp from Beth and he turned to look at her taking her other hand into his as she watched his every move pinning him down with her eyes, the eyes that he sometimes thought saw everything. She certainly saw things in him, things he didn't know were there. Not until she showed him. It was like that now. He never thought in a million years he'd be suspended in this moment.

"You do?" He knew he was the only one who heard her and somehow it was kind of like he envisioned, just the two of them as everyone else faded into the background. Just noise in a sea of tranquility (or some shit).

He nodded and searched her gaze but he already knew the answer. To all his questions. He shrugged. "If you'll have me. I know I'm supposed to get down on one knee and all that and I will but I want to get a ring and-." Beth held her finger to his lips and shook her head, smiling through her tears. They were the happy ones, he was sure of it, though it had taken him a time or two to get them straight, the happy tears versus the ones borne of sadness and grief.

"No, Daryl." She wound her arms up around her neck just looking up at him like he had all the answers in the world and he knew it wasn't really true but she made him feel like he did. And truth was, any answers he did have he owed to her and the unfailing way she loved him.

Beth didn't want all that. She didn't want the traditional stuff that came with courting and engagement and marriage and all that. Now she knew she'd have to go with the latter because her Daddy wouldn't hear of her sleeping with Daryl and not being married to him. Although, she thought guiltily, that's exactly what they had been doing already. Still, he loved her and he wanted to marry her. She was nearly giddy.

"That's not us. What we have is special."

"What who has is what?" Hershel's voice carried with an echo straight to Beth's ears as he came into the commons and she couldn't help it, she jumped out of Daryl's arms.

"Morning Daddy." Beth began as she faced her father. She had never been so scared in her life but she held fast to Daryl's hand. She wasn't letting go.

"You're right. This is gonna be good." Maggie whispered to her husband and Beth shot her sister a glare.

"Everybody out." Hershel's voice bellowed.

"Daddy, I think I should weigh in on this decision." Maggie's voice said from beside her father who turned to her and Daryl stared in awe as he leveled his I-aint-even-kiddin' gaze at his oldest daughter. "It's not your decision, Magpie."

If there was ever a time he wished he had a working camera it was now because the look on Maggie's face as her argument deflated right before his eyes. It was definitely a Polaroid moment in his book.

Rick walked by then and smirked at Daryl while clapping him on the arm. He didn't have to say a word. His endless amusement was written all over his face and the message was loud and clear. "Better you than me, brother." Lord didn't he know.

He looked at Beth who, to her credit, didn't look any worse for wear as they sat down side by side across the table from Hershel and waited while he sipped his coffee.

"What's this I hear about you wantin' to marry my daughter?" Hershel directed his first question at Daryl and he swallowed past the lump.

"I love her." He knew Hershel was a simple man, just like himself and he also was an honest man. That meant he appreciated candid statements like Daryl had just made.

"I know that already. I meant when do you want me to perform the ceremony." There was a twinkle in the old man's eye as he stared down the both of them. "I may be old you two, but I'm not blind yet. I've seen the way you look at her." He directed his gaze back to his daughter. "And you at him. Been wonderin' when the two of you were gonna come to the same conclusion. That ya belong together."

And he wasn't even gonna lie. There was an immense satisfaction when her old man turned back from the door and tapped the wall with his crutch. "One more thing. I ain't deaf yet either."

He looked at Beth whose face was redder than a beet and outright laughed at her shocked expression. "That's all you babe." If he was smug, well he was going to enjoy it. It didn't happen very often that Beth Greene got taken down a notch or two.

She smirked as she walked past him, swishing her hips. "Yeah, well you're the one that makes me that loud."

Fuck. He knew it wouldn't last long.

After that someone from the Woodbury group came in with two big boxes. "Look what we found. A bunch of Halloween costumes. Thought the kids could use them for dress up."

Daryl stared at Beth as she perused the items and then it happened. She gave him that look and he knew then. He was screwed. It was only a matter of time. He just had to wonder what a white dress and a wig had to do with it.

I intended to finish this all tonight but time got away from me and I am way too much of a perfectionist to rush it. that being said I am a total paradox so please forgive any typos in THIS part as it is late and I gotta get up early. So the ending to this segment will be posted tomorrow night. Hope you enjoyed and let me know k? Maybe a surprise in tomorrow night's chapter. ;)