"Daddy daddy!" the small childlike cry pulled him from slumber and Daryl woke slowly to the heavy weight resting on his chest. He cracked open an eye to peer at the small child sitting cross legged on his chest, her small sticky fingers poking at his cheeks.
Groaning he reached over to grab the child's arms and lifted her up as she squealed and giggled against his hold as he moved into a sitting position. "What's up Abby?" he asked as he settled her onto his lap sighing as she cuddled against his chest.
The gray light of dawn was just beginning to make its way into the room and Daryl sighed at the realization that once again he had risen before the sun.
"Will you tell me a story?" Abigail asked as she peered up at him with large blue eyes that to this day made Daryl's heart clench in pain at the sight.
He sighed and rested his head against the back of the couch. "About what?"
Abby's face crinkled in thought in one of the few traits she had actually gotten from him before smiling. "Tell me about Mommy!" she cried excitedly as she twisted in his lap to stare at him expectantly.
Daryl closed his eyes briefly in pain before nodding. He was not surprised by this request, nearly every other day she asked him to tell her about her mother. In truth Daryl loved these moments. Despite the pain that it caused him it allowed him to reminisce on the one woman he had ever dared to love.
"Your mother was a very sweet girl." he began as Abby gazed at him longingly for words of a woman she would never get to meet. He stared back at her, taking in her small heart shaped face and large blue eyes. He tugged on a strand of her unruly blonde hair. "You look just like her." he admitted in a whisper. For the first few weeks after Abby had been born Daryl had been unable to look at her. He had to close his eyes when he fed her because the sight of her blue eyes on his nearly made his heart shatter in despair.
Daryl had refused to name her for months, he had felt no emotional connection to his own daughter as he changed and fed her and tried to calm her cries. He knew he should love her, was supposed to love her, that Beth expected him to love their daughter even more than he had loved her. But he couldn't. When he looked at her all he could see was the thing that had killed the love of his life. He blamed the child almost as much as he blamed himself for Beth's death. If they had been more careful, if he had tried harder to find a doctor, she would still be here. For months Daryl took care of his unnamed baby like it was a chore until one day as he fed her she smiled at him.
And the whole world stopped turning.
Her smile, just like every other part of her, was a carbon copy of Beth's. Daryl had never thought he would see that smile again. He had clutched his daughter to his chest and cried for hours on the dirty floor of the preschool he had broken into and slowly felt his heart begin to expand enough to let her creep in.
Despite that, Daryl still didn't name her for weeks until he stumbled upon a baby name book in the pharmacy where he was stealing formula. He had held his daughter in the crook of his arm as he flipped through names, saying each one aloud. Whether he was asking her or Beth for approval he wasn't sure of.
When he had said the name "Abigail" out loud his daughter had smiled widely at him and Daryl felt that was the choice all three of them were in agreement on. Abigail, joy of the father.
It took time but slowly the pain of his daughter began to ease and he stopped blaming her for the death of her mother, and though it took even longer he stopped blaming himself. Now, over two years after her birth Daryl no longer blamed either of them for their loss and he was able to look at his daughter and see parts of himself in her as well as parts of Beth.
"She liked to sing." Daryl continued as Abby hung onto his every word, her heart surely aching as much as his at the thought of Beth. "She had the best voice I had ever heard." he admitted as he closed his eyes, the phantom sound of her voice in his ears.
"Can I sing?" Abby asked quietly as she peered at him with her large blue eyes.
Daryl shrugged. "Why don't you try?" he asked her as he tugged on a strand of her hair the way he did with Beth that always made her swat his hand away.
Abby frowned at her hands clearly trying to remember one of the songs she had heard. There wasn't many as Daryl never sang and the only songs she heard were from music players he could find that still had working batteries. She finally settled on making up her own song and as she opened her mouth to spew forth the nonsensically stung together words Daryl was pleasantly surprised to find that Beth had left them both with this gift as well.